Letter Series Rifles: Refurbishment/Rebuild Marks?

[jmaurer]

Digging back through rifles and records, one of the Type 56 letter series rifles in inventory has the letter preceded by the number two. I've seen this on other rifles, and in some images here. Does this number two denote a rebuild? The rifle is in an obvious replacement stock with patches/repairs where needed, and stands out with it's lighter color and finish. I'll post a couple of images, but I'm hours away from those. Any thoughts?

[Justin Hell]

I seem to recall recently this being mentioned possibly as a rollover 'month'...when they exceed the digit allotment, and add the 2 to begin the digit sequence again. so A9999 would be followed by 2A0001...it makes sense.  Then again, it could be once they ran out of letters and needed to start over, same concept...so Y9999 would be followed by 2A0001. That scenario seems less likely, as there are 24 observed letters used (Q and Z excluded for legibility/clarity I suspect) and the letter guns span two years.  Unless the letter serial scheme didn't start and stop on a dime based on the calendar year...and there were perhaps a couple months on either end?  The first theory seems the most sound.   Then again, there are also five digit letter guns...so it is a little open ended...perhaps they dealt with rollover months in two different ways?

It's probably a good thing they only stuck to this scheme for a couple years. 

EDIT: I just noticed L is also missing, probably for the same reason as Q and Z, So there is a missing month out of the 24....

[Loose}{Cannon]

We had a report of an L existing but we're not able to get a picture....  Who knows.   

The fact there are letters having 5 digits tells me the 2 prefix wasn't used when gone over 9999.

[Justin Hell]

Do you think they thought a Z would end up looking like a 2 enough that they just didn't bother making a Z?

[Loose}{Cannon]

No, because if you drop the Q (for obvious reasons as described in the progression sticky), you still dont make it to Z if they needed 24 months.  I have no doubt they would have used a Z if there were 25 months needed.

[jmaurer]

I dug out the rifle mentioned in the opening post, and I confused the stock on this one with another rifle. This one appears to have had some filler placed in sapwood (?) or wormy (?) places, but it looks like it was an arsenal job. Anyway, the rifle: