The extractor cleanse cuts are something that are a hold over from the hammer guns and early hammerless guns.
The first hammerless guns did not have rebounding hammers. Along with some other things inside the action, they also put these small cleanse cuts in the extractor to make sure that it would clear the pins when opening.
After rebounding hammers were implemented in the hammerless guns, the extractor guns remained for some years. Garth, your later guns do not have them due to this. They were phased out in the early 1890s.
I have a PP article in the works that deals with this very topic in detail.
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B. Dudley
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