The R.G OWEN bbl marking has the look of the letters originally very lightly stamped into the steel. Then gone over with a graver to deepen them and even connect the parts where the stamping was incomplete in a few places.
It could be a re-cut done at the time of a re-blu of the bbl. The bottom bar on the E was left untouched w/the graver.
Polishing could easily make a stamping shallow and uneven.
Stamps have sometimes been used as a sort of layout for lettering,,to be purposely gone over by hand to make them appear as completely hand cut. Done lightly so as to provide guidelines and initial depth to the cuts. But not imprinted so deeply that the letter(s) can't be adjusted slightly by line width changes with the hand graver afterwards.
I'd almost think something else was imprinted on the bbl in the same area, just below the Owen marking and it was peened out and polished off first.
The discoloration in the blue is common from the compaction done to the steel when doing that. But it's not a 100% sure fire finger pointing condemnation that something was done there. Pictures and lighting alone can be deceptive as well.
Enlarging the pic helps show a lot of the detail of course.
With all that, I don't know if it's an RGOwen or not.
Just some idle observations of the bbl lettering job.
