1923 Stoeger question

[Dwight Gruber]

The 1923 Stoeger American Eagle I looked at today was a long-barrel model, certainly not an Artillery, but seemingly longer than 6" (didn't get a chance to measure it). It did have the taller sight post of a 6" barrel.


Descriptions I've read of these guns specify varying barrel lengths. What were the marking conventions involved? This gun had a barrel which looked slightly different from the rest of the gun, the bluing appeared slightly different; the serial number was not stamped across the barrel axis, but rather, along the axis, lengthwise, and was only the last three digits of the #. I didn't see a proof mark. The wear of the bluing ata the muzzle was commensurate with the wear pattern of the rest of the gun (not much, admittedly, this was a very clean sample).


I asked the owner if it was a re-barrel, he assured me that it wasn't, but I have this niggling grain of doubt in the back of my mind. Can anybody clear it up?


Dwight