This is a great discussion. But just to interject a few thoughts here. These guns were machine made and hand finished. We know there were templates for drop points and such. Stocks were turned from blanks from a master etc.But they were hand finished guns and with that there has to be some "artistic license". Suppose the checkerer overran a couple of lines..change the pattern slightly..all fixed. Suppose a drop point chipped...fix it. Suppose the nose of the comb didn't come out quite right...make it a little different. These great craftsman were human after all and to think that errors were not made means we are putting these people on another plane. I would think that the final inspector would have the final say whether the gun went into the finished rack or went back for rework. After all we are talking about frugal Yankees here and these guns were not machine made 870's.
I'm not implying this is what happened but I thought it would be worth some thought.
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"Much care is bestowed to make it what the Sportsman needs-a good gun"-Charles Parker
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