Winchester Model 41 serial number — why there isn’t one
The Winchester Model 41 is a single-shot, bolt-action .410 bore shotgun produced from 1920 to 1934, with limited production continuing intermittently to about 1941.
- Produced:
- 1920–1934 (regular production); intermittent limited production to about 1941
- Action:
- bolt-action
The Model 41 has no serial number
Winchester never numbered the Model 41. Like its other low-priced single-shot .22s and utility shotguns, it left the factory with a model or caliber marking and patent dates on the barrel, but no serial. Federal law did not require serial numbers on rifles and shotguns until the Gun Control Act took effect in December 1968, and by then the Model 41 had been out of production for years. A Model 41 with no number is exactly as it left New Haven. Nothing has been removed.
About 22,000 to 23,000 were made, depending on the reference.
A single-shot bolt-action .410, the third of Winchester's low-priced single-shot shotguns. Regular production ran 1920 to 1934, with small intermittent runs to about 1941.
There is no record to search and no factory letter to order. The Cody Firearms Museum, which issues Winchester factory letters, works from the factory’s serial-number records, and it cannot document a gun that never had a number.
If your Model 41 has a number on it
Numbers do turn up on these guns. Most were added after the gun left the factory: an owner’s identification number, a hardware store’s stock number, or an importer’s marking on a gun that traveled abroad and came back. Some are factory marks that are not serials, such as inspector or fitter stamps and, on several models, a two-digit year stamp hidden under the barrel. Patent dates on the barrel are mistaken for a serial number too. None of these can be looked up in any record.
How to date a Model 41 without a serial number
Winchester changed the Model 41 over its run, and the published references date some of those changes. Together they bracket when a particular gun was made:
- The chamber was 2½ inches through 1932 and 3 inches from 1933. That splits production into before and after 1933, nothing finer.
- A pistol-grip stock was standard, a straight grip was offered at no extra charge, and checkered stocks were special order. None of these dates the gun.
Feature dating gives a window of years, not a date. Parts were used up across changeovers, so a gun can show an older feature later than the reference year.