Bubba did that.
The ways of Bubba are awful and mysterious.
Bubba is the guy who takes a valuable world-heritage artifact and improves it with a hacksaw and some cold blue.
Why spend $400 on a deer rifle from Wal Mart when you can customize an irreplaceable historic artifact?
Or alternatively,
Back in the 50s and 60s, the world was awash in a lot of junky old war surplus rifles selling for $15 each, mail order. Fortunately, Bubba rose to the occasion, and transformed tens of thousands of useless old clunkers into unique and valuable customized masterpieces.
More Bubba work:
http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=121934
Oh, Threeband, I see what you mean. Haha, I thought those marks were intentional. Looking at some others, it appears that you are correct,
By the way, I have been looking for some ammo for this gun. It looks like it takes 7.7×58mm Arisaka. Does anyone know where I can find some reasonably priced ammo for this gun? The best I have found is over $30 for a box of 20 .
I would be fine with surplus or corrosive ammo, I clean them after use anyways so I think it would be OK.
Thanks!