Gungeek: "The one red flag is the rifling issue. 1- being nearly perfect. 2- If it's truly unique from anything else that Colt had at that time, that is suspect; but there can be a good reason.
The rifling should match other .38 revolvers they made at that time because it's not real logical for this one revolver to have a completely unique barrel from other .38 revolvers Colt's made. If they have .38 barrels/barrel-stock around, it makes sense they'd use that and not something unique (unless they were experimenting).
But I don't have a clue off the top of my head if Colt's made any other .38 revolvers that time. 1875 was the year they designed the cartridge, so they obviously had something they were working with, but I don't recall off the top of my head if anything was actually offered to the public that early (I wanna say they didn't have any .38's of any model back then, but I don't trust my memory). If there weren't any others, that really complicates authentication because you have really only have one good source for authentication...the other .38.
The obvious would be to reach out to the owner of the one known and authenticated to see if the barrel rifling matches, as well as everything else."
According to a well respected Colt SAA authority: "The rifling is of the early style, equal distant lands and grooves, but most of those early 38 barrels were left over percussion navies, turned and used on the model 1877 double action."
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