Trego's Mountain Ear

We tend to think that modern firearms all have serial numbers – but even the large manufacturers tended to avoid serial numbers before the Gun Control Act of 1968 made serial numbers compulsory.  If your old 22 rifle doesn’t have a serial number, it probably just means it was built before 1968.

Remington serial numbered all their long guns before 1941 (even 22s), they had a system that would tell when any particular firearm was built.  It’s a pair of letters stamped on the left side of the barrel – one letter tells the month it was built, the other the year.

It’s easy to remember the code for the month – BLACKPOWDERX – B means January, L means February, all the way through to X standing for December.

Years are a bit harder to remember – the first thing to remember is they didn’t use the letter O – it could be mistaken for a zero.  The letter I wasn’t used because it could be mistaken for 1.  Q could also be mistaken for a zero, so it wasn’t used.  So the first thing to remember is that 1920 was L . . . so 1921 was M, 1922 was N, and (because there is no O) 1923 was P.  This system went on until 1927 when they skipped U and went straight to V.  The system moved on to Z in 1932, then 1933 started with A.  Fortunately, in 1942, when L came around again, the nation was on a war footing and not turning out a lot of sporting rifles.  1943 introduced the double lettering for years – MM stands for 1943, and those paired letters continued until January of 1954 (except VV is skipped for some unknown reason) – then, in February, 1954, everything went back to single letters – A continued through 54, followed by B, etc. until 1976 – which was I, 1977 was U, and 1978 was Q.  1979 brought V back, and in 1980 Remington began at A and used the whole alphabet!

In 1999 Remington decided they could dispense with their unique dating system and just work from serial numbers. 

My old single-shot is marked BJ5 – which translates to January (B), 1962 (J), Employee Sale (5).  I know that the employee sale part is incorrect because my mother bought it for me at the Fairchild Air Base PX.

Just to add one more bit of confusion to the old Remington 22 rifles – the Remington 513T Matchmaster  (a sweet little bolt action that I have never owned) when owned by the military was called a M-13.  Made from 1940 to 1968, and frequently used by the military as a training rifle, it has both serial numbers and date codes.

For a more complete description of Remington’s date codes, click Remington Barrel date Code – it’s worth linking to if you are interested in dating the old Remingtons, and the charts are much more usable than my descriptions.