manufacture date from serial number??

[bangswitch]

I just bought a Stevens Model 311 12ga double. It has 28" barrels and is chambered for 2-3/4 and 3" shells, twin triggers. It's in very nice condition, but like other 311's is a real plain-Jane shotgun. I was wondering if there's a way to determine the age by the serial number. I know these guns were discontinued sometime in the mid-late '80s and models before 1968 (?) didn't have serial numbers.

I had a 20ga Fox BSE many years ago, had a stupid moment and sold it, and have wanted another one since. Found one in 12ga for $250 and grabbed it. This one isn't as nice as the Fox; it has a plain rib compared to the vented rib on the Fox, and the Fox had a nice beavertail fore end compared to the standard one on this gun, but no matter. Just wanted another side-by-side to occasionally hit the skeet range with. Please don't give me any grief about over-under vs side-by-side, it is a conscious choice, I'm a traditional old fart.

 

[3212]

A local gunshop had a reference book years ago and gave me the manufacture year of my Win. model 70.

 

[rcmodel]

I have all kinds of reference books for Colt, S&W, Winchester, Browning, and others.

Unfortunately, the is no such book on Stevens shotguns, as nobody collects them.
So nobody I know of did the research and wrote a book.

On top of that, factory records are not available from Stevens.
And most of them didn't even have serial numbers on them until the 1968 Gun Control Act required all firearms to have serial numbers.

This from an interwebz search:

All the Stevens factory guns made from 1948 till the passage of the Gun Control Act (requiring serial numbers) had a date code roughly stamped on the center bottom of the action either just in front of the trigger guard or just behind the hinge. The stamp is a letter for the year and a number for the month of manufacture, stamped inside of a circle or oval. "A" represents 1948 and each succeeding alphabet letter represents the next year. "O" and "Q" were not used.

rc