Remington 37 - mark decoding
Howdy, I just registered earlier today on this fine forum.
I won't cover my life story - it's too long (I'm an old fart)!
I haven't fired a weapon since military service, serving in Asia in electronics surveillance. Before that, I hunted deer and some other critters in the late '50's/early '60's with my Pap's 8mm Mauser that he brought back from Normandy.
Anyway, I have a VERY small collection of firearms, two of which are Remington 37's which I'm just getting back to cleaning, detailing, etc. One is #111xx which, according to my research and the folks at Remington is from 1953+/- and the other, #081xx, is from mid-'40's, probably produced the same year I was, 1946. First, I wonder if you folks can confirm those approximate production dates.
Secondly, I've been trying to decode marks on the right side of each barrel. I guess they are marks made by a gunsmith after repair, upgrade, or whatever but was wondering what they meant. Can anyone provide some insight? I threw up a website a few minutes ago to carry pics of each area of the marks and hope the URL is good here.
http://www.extrinsicus.com/
Edit: Sorry, I didn't see your edit before I posted this. Yeah, they could also be "YY". Assuming "X" on the smaller mark, that would place it in December, 1952 and interpolation of the ser. no. vs production dates puts it in the middle of 1952 - close enough for government work!
I won't cover my life story - it's too long (I'm an old fart)!
I haven't fired a weapon since military service, serving in Asia in electronics surveillance. Before that, I hunted deer and some other critters in the late '50's/early '60's with my Pap's 8mm Mauser that he brought back from Normandy.
Anyway, I have a VERY small collection of firearms, two of which are Remington 37's which I'm just getting back to cleaning, detailing, etc. One is #111xx which, according to my research and the folks at Remington is from 1953+/- and the other, #081xx, is from mid-'40's, probably produced the same year I was, 1946. First, I wonder if you folks can confirm those approximate production dates.
Secondly, I've been trying to decode marks on the right side of each barrel. I guess they are marks made by a gunsmith after repair, upgrade, or whatever but was wondering what they meant. Can anyone provide some insight? I threw up a website a few minutes ago to carry pics of each area of the marks and hope the URL is good here.
http://www.extrinsicus.com/
Edit: Sorry, I didn't see your edit before I posted this. Yeah, they could also be "YY". Assuming "X" on the smaller mark, that would place it in December, 1952 and interpolation of the ser. no. vs production dates puts it in the middle of 1952 - close enough for government work!
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The letter markings on the breach end of the Remington barrels are DOM's. Try the site at this link for help in decoding the markings.
If this site isn't helpful you might obtain the latest issue of the Blue Book. In the back reference section under the topic of "Serialization", they have all the Remington date codes listed.
http://oldguns.net/sn_php/remdates.php0 -
Thanks, Rufe. I've been on that site but, as I understand it, the DOM marks are on the left side of the barrel and I cannot see all those marks because they are partially covered by the forward part of the action which, according to the Remington dude this pm, was done by some makers for aesthetics or some reason. The marks in the pics are on the right side of the barrel. Truth be told, I don't really want to take them apart just for the date codes. I'll check out the Blue Book though. Thanks for the suggestion. 0 -
The DOM for Remington 37s is on the right side of the barrel with a letter code. All other Rems on left.
What are the letter codes ???
Those that look like the letter "V" are probably the top half of "Y" as there was no letter "V" in the code at that time YY is 1952
TT should be 1948.
All those marks are factory not some gunsmith.
bjm0 -
Brian,
Thank you for that! Several, I mean several, days of online research and telephone calls never revealed that the 37's had DOM codes on the right side. Even the dude at Remington this afternoon had me looking on the left side. I don't know if you can see the detail in the pics on the link above, but it looks like one is "VV" and the other is "TTO". I can buy "TTO" as July, 1948. Even interpolating the ser. no. between first and last production dates results in the middle of 1948. However, "VV" doesn't seem to make sense since V was not used in the year code, per: http://www.remingtonsociety.com/questions/BLACKPOWDERX.htm. If the "VV" are the tops of unfinished "XX" and the small mark to the right of those is possibly part of "X", I can buy that as December, 1951. Does that make sense?
In any case, Brian, thanks for the info re: DOM.0 -
Brian,
Yeah, I didn't see your edit before I posted the above. They could also be "YY" which would place it at December, 1952 and interpolation of production dates vs ser. no. place it in the middle of 1952, close enough for government work!0 -
well, if it helps I've got #07000 with a date code of 'l tt' which translates to Jan. 1948 0 -
Yep, it helps, Mike. Given a production span of 20 years, minus a 3-year production hiatus of 37's during WWII, average was 720 units/year. Mine is #08197, making it 1200+/- units in a half-year (given your #07000 at January, 1948). That's a production rate of 2400 units for 1948, over 3 times the average but that makes sense that, after WWII, production would be way up. Then again, maybe not. I've looked all over www for year-by-year production numbers. thought I saw it the other day, but can't find it now.
I think that "ltt" puts yours at February, 1948.0
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