I don't think the "1940" has any association with the date of proof. About anything is possible, but I would think an Austrian longarm would have some type of proofstamp unless during wartime and the stock would appear more Austrian. Also on imported tubes I'd expect to see Sauer & Sohn on the underside of the tubes. But it is possible that it was built in Austria from sourced components. The British stamps might hint toward the fact that it was acquired during British occupation at the end of WWII and it was taken back home to Britian. Still odd that Sauer is on the top rib.
A few Austrian labeled longarms:
Rigby style forend latch
Drilling at Bob Jones.
One thing though, Jani's example has the forend "bump" that may be attributed to Schilling or Triebel. I don't know that I've seen it on Austrian examples, but it could have been sourced.
And Jeff if you are referring to something argumentative with me, your all alone looking in the mirror as I'm only pulling info together to compare in an attempt to get at the truth since I can't hold Jani's example in pieces to inspect.
Also I'll concur that the above fuzzy pic is very, very similar to a Viennese Kipplauf whose frames were sometimes blocky.
I knew that I have seen a similar retaining screw somewhere:
Clay's J. Nowotny
Kind Regards,
Raimey
rse
