Thank you guys - I will see what I can find out about the receiver. Going back to Kutter's first post, he said that Nickel Steel actions cut pretty well without annealing to get rid of the hardening. I do think mine is a nickel steel action based upon the "NS" stamp on the base, which would match the moved serial number. It also still has the original dark black parkerizing below the stock line. I kind of wonder if the gun was built pre-war, with a low number receiver/straight bolt, then the receiver was later swapped to a high number, after which the engraving done to the whole rifle and it was re-blued. Matching the relief cut in the stock for the old straight handle bolt would explain why they could have reused an old bolt. So I still need to check headspace.
I do need to find a good gunsmith - they are few and far between around here.
