Winchester M21: What is the asterisk after the Serial Number?|Page 2|General Discussions & Questions|Forum|Winchester Collector

Bert H. said

jolly bill said

I think the best explanation is from a good friend, good gun mechanic and engraver – Jim DeMunck who early on suggested it was a repair mark put on by Winchester when a M21, or other, went back to Winchester.

Pauline did not have any record of the gun so that cannot be confirmed.

Bill  

Bill,

While I have no explanation for the asterisk marking, I do believe that it is highly unlikely that the Winchester Custom Shop would have added any externally visible markings on a Model 21 returned for repair.  The regular factory repair shop did not externally mark any of the many thousands of guns returned for repair, and the odds of the Custom Shop doing that are extremely low.  The other thing to consider, is that the Model 21 was a very solidly built gun, and the odds of one of them needing repair work is/was also extremely low.

Bert

  

Probably so Bert.

The previous owner did suggest not using heavy loads as it may double, as in when you fire the first barrel, the second barrel would also fire, unintentionally.

I did shoot 50 rounds at Sporting Clay’s with the gun using my light target loads, and it did not double.

It has a Winchester Selective Single Trigger and on a couple occasions, it did not fire the second barrel after shooting the first barrel.  As in the single selective trigger did not step to the second barrel.  I am not 100% certain it was the gun tho, it may have been me not pushing the selector all the way over.  I’ll try that again.

A sweet shooting gun, for sure!