Joe Farmer has thrown the collecting world a bit of a curve with his "magazine rifle" nomenclature/theory/whatever. For eons we had pure '92s, pure '96s, and anything in between was thrown into the "'92/'96 conversion" sack. This was tidy enough for most folks, but Joe, brilliant micro-researcher that he is, found another path - which may well be the correct one.

The middle ground is VERY difficult to get a firm handle on, due to a lack of consistancy, and the fact that the guns themselves have been through so many hands. All sorts of configurations are possible.

In this case, because of the high serial number, I believe the arm was originally built as a "magazine rifle" (which still had a very '92 appearance - and a lot of '92 parts) but has had the 1896 conversion performed.