Remington 742 Serial Number Date Of Manufacture

What is the manufacture date of a Remington woodsmaster model 742 30-06 springfield serial 7462765? Your rifle was manufactured around 1974 or 1975. For a more accurate date look on the left side. When used to date Remington shotguns, where the barrel can easily be changed, make sure the barrel is original to the shotgun. For example 'BL' would be January of 1920, and 'CWW' would be April of 1950. A two or three letter code on the left side of the barrel identifies the month and year of manufacture. Not all Remington serial numbers were consectutive for the model. Military models were often numbered by the contract and commercial guns marked with batch numbers having little relationship to the time of manufacture. May 11, 2014. Dear readers, I receive many questions about Remington serial number lookup page of Rem870.com blog.

1. Remington 700 Manufacture Date Serial Number
2. Remington 742 Year Of Manufacture
3. Remington 742 Serial Number Lookup

If you are looking for more information about your particular Remington firearms, then the serial number can give you some useful insight into the date of manufacture of your specific gun. In the picture below, you will see an example from a newer Remington 597 rifle with a manufacturing date of April 2006. You can use the serial number to quickly decipher the date by using the chart below. To determine the date, you need to look for the letters stamped on the left side of the barrel. The first letter will give you the month code. The next letter (possibly 2 letters) will give you the year code.

MONTH CODE

YEAR CODE

Please note that during the years of 1999, 2000, & 2001 (highlighted in red above), Remington did not stamp the date code on the barrels. The date code during these years was just placed on the box. Now, this doesn't help much in many circumstances, because how likely is it that the box will still be around for as long as the gun exists. A gun made of steel and wood can stand the test of time. A paper box will likely not. Most people will have disposed of the box a long time ago, and so it's unfortunate that the serial numbers were not stamped on the barrel during those 3 years. Thankfully, after 2001, Remington went back to having the serial numbers stamped on the barrel again.

One thing that you might notice when you examine the chart above, the letters for the year code repeat themselves. This means that sometimes you will have to consider the specific model of Remington firearm that you have. For instance, if you have a Remington rifle that you know was made a long time ago, then you won't expect the year date code to be from recent times. Some models of Remington guns were only produced during a certain time period. Knowing that can also help you to better decipher the date codes from your Remington firearms serial numbers.

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FIREARMS INFORMATION

Remington never (*) used serial numbers to identify the date of manufacture of it's firearms, they however stamped a date code (spelled out below) by the first letter meaning the month and the last letter the year of manufacture.

BARREL DATE CODE - stamped exposed on LH top rear of barrel after 1920

the following will only be stamped where applicable

#2 Part order barrel (not originally assembled to firearm)

#3 Service section received

#4 Return as received

#5 Employee sale

R.E.P. On the RH side of the barrel will be a Magnaflux, Remington proof & a test mark

If a gun is returned to the factory as a fire damaged, or blown up firearm, the factory will stamp it as a prefix to their date code with a #4 on the barrel and return it un-repaired. Then if the gun is ever subsequently returned to a warranty center or the factory by ANYONE, they will refuse to work on it as an unsafe firearm.

REMINGTON MANUFACTURING DATE CODE

stamped on LH top rear of barrel, 2 or 3 digit, (month first, year after) these will normally only be the last letters as seen below,

with the whole list shown here ONLY if it had been returned for repairs
The anchor shown here with the date code is just a symbol, as many different inspector marks will be seen

The above information was taken from Remington's own information sheet, so if your gun may not conform, then I am also at a loss in explaining.

The factory says all barrels are date code stamped, well I have found some that are not, or if they are, are so erratic stamping that trying to decipher them is impossible.

The photos below may help a bit. Both were taken off Remington 760s, with the one on the left, a 30-06 that I bought new October 10, 1954. This has been rebored to a 35 Whelen Improved. The one on the right again a 30-06, but with a shorter barrel that I made into a knock around quad rifle with pivot mounts.

Remington 700 Manufacture Date Serial Number

(*) On 8/9/99, they stopped stamping the barrels with the date code. They however continued to mark the date code on the end flap of the shipping box for shotgun barrels however. They planned on using just the serial numbers to tell when the gun was manufactured. So there was a 2 year gap in rifle date coded barrels and the normal consumer, or gunsmith would have to contact the factory for this information. They then saw the error of their ways apparently because of being inundated by phone calls and resumed stamping the date code on the barrel on 10/1/01.

Remington 742 Year Of Manufacture

You will notice the year code repeats itself, but over 20 years difference, so even if it was used on the same model, in all likelihood sights or stocks would be different which would indicate the different date. You will also notice the month code spelling out BLACKPOWDERX, this is a common code in the firearms industry. Also some letters were left out if there was a chance of misidentifying a date. Also they jockeyed year letters to a new starting point in 1980.

If you find marks on the underside of the barrel, they will more than likely be fitters or assembly marks, which mean nothing as to dating the firearm.

I have seen one EARLY 740 S/N 54,9XX that has a barrel date coded May of 1969, which apparently had been sent back to the factory and rebarreled with a original 740 barrel instead of a 742 which was in production at that time.

To find general manufacturing dates it may be best to go to the Blue Book of Gun Values, which does give manufacturing dates of most models.

An issue that people need to be aware of, is that many Remington firearms such as the 870 series of shotguns can have their barrels easily changed or replaced. So, if the barrel is not original to the specific firearm in question the date code may be meaningless. Also if there is a custom or aftermarket barrel installed it will not have these factory codes.
Confounding the issue a bit may be the fact that Remington Arms stamps their final inspector stamps and assembly (product) codes in the immediate area of the date codes. So it may be difficult at times to determine exactly what is what. With that in mind, and considering a lot of variables. If a specific Remington firearm has a serial number, Remington Customer Service is always the first source which should be checked for date of manufacture as they would be the definitive source. There are no publically accessible databases for Remington serial numbers.

With the hundreds of different Remington models produced over the past 200 years, it can sometimes be difficult to determine the age of your firearm.

Overview
Since serial numbers were not required until 1968, your firearm may not have a serial number. For models without a serial number, we may be able to determine the age by the 2-3 letters that are stamped on the barrel. If your firearm does have a serial number, if you will call or email us the serial number and model number we can determine the approximate age of your firearm.
Contact Remington through their Help Center by e-mail at info@remington.com or call their historian at 1-800-243-9700 Mon-Fri 9-5 EST.

Remington 742 Serial Number Lookup

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Originated 01-29-2007, Last updated 04-28-2020
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