how to find the 'birthday'?

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ultradoc

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Is there a general rule of finding the 'birthday' of guns or does each maker have their own system and what is it? Thanks.
 
Some records are more complete than others. Some military arms have the date of manufacture stamped right onto the reciever or barrel. Others used codes. It's more difficult with armsmakers which either did not use the western calendar or did not mark their arms chronologically. In some cases, serial number surveys combined with known production figures have allowed collectors to deduce a probable manufacturing date.

Now, for some American manufacturers, the records are made available to researchers and you can get amazing detail.
 
It is a maker by maker system with some of them using the same serial numbers over and over for minor changes in the firearm design.

In other words, no, there's no uniform system.
 
If you're looking for the "birthday" of a specific gun, call the manufacturer. I called the manufacturer of mine and they looked it up on their computer.
 
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