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Originally Posted by tahunua001
according to VIshooters barrel date/serial number list, the serial number in question should have a 3-18 dated barrel, sorry fellow, but it's a replacement by someone looking to keep it looking original.
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I think you are reading a lot more into that chart than is there. That looks to simply be a survey of barrel dates on a sample of rifles, and the data set is pretty damn small (unless you consider 5 to be a representative sample of the 10,000 rifles between 790,000 and 800,000).
No there is no way to be certain that any barrel/receiver combo is the same as it was when it left Springfield Armory, but Occam's razor still applies. Based on the way SA made rifles at the time, a 1917 barrel fitted to a 1918 receiver is pretty normal, particularly for a rifle made early in the year.
Since the 800,000 number was hit in mid February, a 1917 barrel would not be considered incorrect for a rifle made in January or early February 1918.
As to the low serial number thing, I would probably shoot it, but handload down, using H4895 and Hodgedon's data:
https://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/H4895%20...le%20Loads.pdf