Help identifying gunmaker

[Hawg]

The ASP kit I assembled had no date code. Just sayin'...

 How can you put a date of manufacture on something that's not finished? I have heard people say they have a kit gun with a date code tho so. ???

[Captainkirk]

Could be date of forging? IDK...Ive seen a couple 'kit guns' with date codes myself. Always wondered... ???

[Ringo]

A gun kit such as this model has a barrel, a frame, and a cylinder. It is designed to be assembled and to shoot. So each piece has to be proofed before it goes into the kit. It is just a matter of safety. That's the way we see it in Europe anyway.
Once each piece has been proofed, it bears the proof markings, including the date code. I don't know if this was mandatory back in the 1960s and 1970s, but it is now.

[Captainkirk]

Makes sense. I would be leery of buying any kit gun sans markings that I didn't build myself.

[Hawg]

A gun kit such as this model has a barrel, a frame, and a cylinder. It is designed to be assembled and to shoot. So each piece has to be proofed before it goes into the kit. It is just a matter of safety. That's the way we see it in Europe anyway.
Once each piece has been proofed, it bears the proof markings, including the date code. I don't know if this was mandatory back in the 1960s and 1970s, but it is now.

I don't know about steel frames but in the 70's brass frames in kits were rough cast and required extensive polishing to smooth out and barrels had tool marks. I would assume the steel frames would also have tool marks. It would have been pointless to try to mark them. I think nowadays a kit consists of a finished but disassembled gun sans bluing.