Variations in mainspring plungers
 

Whenever I am working on Parkers and find something interesting in the process I try to document it in case there is any general interest in it.

In this case, I was taking apart a pretty early hammerless DH 1 frame 12g. Serial number 62,XXX.
I found something interesting when removing the mainsprings. The plungers have two grooves in them. Not the usual single groove.
I have worked on other hammerless guns even earlier than this one and have not observed this variation before.

Below is a photo of the subject plunger on the left compared to a conventional one on the right.

Attachment 36138

Maybe they made the groove on the wrong end first, then made it in the correct place. New guy? Miller time??

If the one with two grooves is earlier, I bet they redesigned it for one groove as a labor saving measure. My .02.