Winchester Model 1400 serial numbers — what the records say

What to know about Model 1400 serial numbers

• No table linking serial numbers to years has ever been published for the Model 1400. Winchester's own serial-number reference leaves the model out and warns that many models are missing from it. The factory records at the Cody Firearms Museum do not cover it either. Winchester customer service may give you an answer in exceptional cases, and a researcher at the Winchester Arms Collectors Association keeps a private Model 1400 database.
• Do not date a Model 1400 from the Model 1200 pump's table. That table is headed Model 120/1200/1300, uses L-prefixed numbers from 1972, and does not include the 1400.
• The original production run was 1964 to 1981. The Mark II name was used from 1968 through 1972, then dropped, and guns went back to plain Model 1400 marking. A reintroduced Model 1400 was in the catalogs from 1989 to 1994. The Model 1400 Ranger ran from 1983 or 1984 (sources differ) to 1994. From 1981 the maker was U.S. Repeating Arms, under license from Olin.
• You can narrow the date using the gun's features. It came out in 12 and 16 gauge, and 20 gauge was added by July 1965. The Skeet Grade and Trap Grade ran from 1965 to 1973. The Deer Gun ran from 1965 to 1974. The left-hand version was dropped in 1973. WinChoke barrels appear from about 1970 to 1971, but fixed-choke barrels carried on, so a WinChoke does not mean you have a Mark II. The reintroduced gun had 22-inch and 28-inch barrels in 1989 and a 26-inch barrel from 1991 to 1993.
• The economy gun is the Model 140 Ranger, not a "Ranger 140". The Model 1400 Ranger is a different gun, a hardwood-stocked version of the 1400.

Related models, and why

Shared serial sequences, successors, and look-alikes — each link says why it is here, straight from the record notes.

• Model 12001964–1984Do not date a Model 1400 from the Model 1200 pump's table.

Other Winchester shotguns

• Model 201919–1927
• Model 211931–1993
• Model 241939–1958
• Model 251949–1954
• Model 401940–1941
• Model 501954–1961

Winchester shotguns that never had a serial number

These have no serial number to look up. Their pages explain why, and how to date one from its features.

• Model 361920–1927
• Model 371936–1963
• Model 411920–1941