Trego's Mountain Ear

I’m noticing that the second would-be assassin is being charged with possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.  It’s good for another five years in the crowbar hotel – but it brings back a memory of a Mauser pistol I had where someone had filed away the numbers and the Nazi proof stamps.

I was teaching at Trinidad State at the time – and the office across the hall from me was the cop instructor.  Down the hill was the gunsmithing building, and betwixt and between was the finest college library on guns that I have ever seen.  In other words, there was no better place to correct the problem.

The library came first – it turned out that the pistol had a unique placement for the grip screw – only the first 1,350 were made that way, and the first serial number was 700,001.  Since there were about a quarter million of these little pistols made, just the uncommon grip screw location was actually enough to figure out the first three digits of the serial number . . . and the internal parts were still marked with the last three digits of the serial number.   Since those internal numbers were above 500, and we knew the starting and ending numbers, the hard part of the research was essentially complete.  A little library research, and I was ready to get the serial number restored.  We did use the chemicals in the cop instructors stash to find the numbers – which confirmed the research, took the pistol down to the gunsmithing department, and one of the instructors restored the serial number. 

The low grip screw variant: 

The ‘standard’ variant:

About half of these first Mauser HSC pistols were purchased by the Kriegsmarine – and I have a hunch that mine went into Canadian hands when the HMCS Moose Jaw sank U-501.  The Moose Jaw pulled 29 German sailors from the water, and, from ads for other Mauser pistols I’ve seen, I have this unverifiable suspicion that three or four wound up on the Moose Jaw and were sanitized by a sailor with a file.  Can’t tell for sure – the records aren’t there, and it happened over 80 years ago.  The pistol couldn’t describe its history.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 required that all new firearms would have serial numbers.  I still have a couple of old 22 single shot rifles, made before GCA68, that were made without serial numbers.  Not a problem – “Congress shall pass no ex post facto laws.” 

On the other hand, I’d hate to have to explain why the SKS rifle that Routh had in Florida this month has an obliterated serial number.  It almost has to have been defaced after 1968.  And the law is pretty straightforward – it’s possession of the gun with a defaced serial number that is illegal . . . the law doesn’t care who obliterated the serial number.  The lack of a serial number is no problem on the old 22 rifles that were made without them – but I suspect that Rauth will get a lot of time to think about obliterating the serial number on his SKS.