I don't see the picture that one poster sees that would show the breech end of the rib and the top of the dolls head area of the receiver that would tell us whether the vent rib was on the gun when it left the factory the first time. The serialization book does not show it to be a vent rib or a single trigger gun. I will have to check, but it could have been a Miller trigger conversion reconverted to double triggers. The Miller conversion usually involves some ugly holes drilled in the trigger plate. However, the R that Dean mentions seems to be a Parker R. I don't know what a second generation Miller R looks like.

Wayne,Looking at your wonderful gun tells me it was originally built with a Parker one screw or first design single trigger. The extra screw hole in the floor plate was for the mounting screw for the mounting block. Also as Bruce states the muzzle end of the vent rib has been repaired and looks to need a little attention again but the keels are in place. A good barrel man can fix this up for you easily.

Oddly enough I found one of those original beads the other day in my stuff. It's wrapped with ivory just as the one in the picture and it's still in it's original packet, Marbles I believe. Jerry

If that is a 5 (I can't really tell if it is a 3 or a 5 on my laptop) Remington date code it would have been an employee purchase. The date code with the 3 would indicate the gun was back to Remington in December 1934 and the XD5 would be an employee purchase 1 year later. That may account for some of the special touches.

As far as the vent rib, it looks correct and I have seen a couple of guns that lettered with vent ribs but did not have a serial number under the rib.

Bill,
Maybe you have the key to a mystery. I understand the month/year date codes as stated in http://www.remingtonsociety.com/rsa/...ns/barrelcodes but have been mystified by the occosional digit field. From your comment I take it that a '3' indicates a customer repair and a '5' indicates an employee purchase? Is that correct? Are there other 'digits' and if so do you know their meaning?

This link maybe helpful.

http://www.wisnersinc.com/additional..._date_code.htm

Bill, The flat and not concave doll's head area of the action was seen when I examined this gun last year. You can almost see this detail in one of the pictures. There is little doubt as to the originality of the vent rib.

Interesting...Another thing I noticed is the the stock must have been redone about the same time the single trigger was removed. In the 6th picture down where there is the screw hole for the mounting block you can see the stock wood. Normally this area would be hollowed out for the single trigger mechanism.

Thanks for the information about the flat top dolls head that was "almost pictured". I thought I was going blind. I believe this gun needs to be bought.