Winchester Model 60 serial number — why there isn’t one
The Winchester Model 60 is an economy single-shot bolt-action .22 rimfire rifle produced from late 1930 to 1934.
- Produced:
- Model 60: late 1930–1934; Model 60A: 1932–1934; Model 60A Target: 1933–1939 (WACA/Watrous chronology; Proofhouse instead dates both 60/60A categories from 1932 to World War II)
- Action:
- bolt-action
The Model 60 has no serial number
Winchester never numbered the Model 60. 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 60 had been out of production for years. A Model 60 with no number is exactly as it left New Haven. Nothing has been removed.
About 161,000 to 166,000 Model 60 and 60A rifles were made together, plus around 6,100 to 6,400 60A Targets.
A reduced-cost successor to the Model 1904 and the predecessor of the cheaper still Model 67. “Sporter” is collector language; Winchester's own terms were Model 60, Model 60A, 60A Target, and Takedown.
Tube-magazine rifles sold as a “Model 60” are the unrelated Canadian Cooey Model 60. The Cody Firearms Records Office's list of covered models does not include the Winchester Model 60.
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 60 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 60 without a serial number
Winchester changed the Model 60 over its run, and the published references date some of those changes. Together they bracket when a particular gun was made:
- The Model 60 has a 23-inch barrel. The standard Model 60A came with 23- and 27-inch barrels, the 27-inch change coming in 1933, and the 60A Target is always 27-inch.
- Some barrels carry a two-digit year stamp on their underside, hidden by the stock. It dates the barrel, not the finished rifle: Winchester did not use parts up in the order they were made.
- The visible roll marks and the WP proof do not give an assembly date.
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.