Winchester Model 72A serial number — why there isn’t one
The Winchester Model 72A is a bolt-action .22 rimfire rifle produced from 1949 to 1959, an updated version of the original Model 72 (1938–1949).
- Produced:
- 1949–1959
- Action:
- bolt-action
The Model 72A has no serial number
Winchester never numbered the Model 72A. 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 72A had been out of production for years. A Model 72A with no number is exactly as it left New Haven. Nothing has been removed.
About 161,000 Model 72 and 72A rifles were made together, from 1938 to 1959.
The 72A of 1949 to 1959 is the tube-magazine Model 72 of 1938 to 1949 with a swept-back bolt handle. Winchester made no Target or Match version of either. The oval WP mark is a proof, not a date code.
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 72A 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 72A without a serial number
Winchester changed the Model 72A over its run, and the published references date some of those changes. Together they bracket when a particular gun was made:
- A swept-back bolt handle marks the 72A, but some Model 72-marked rifles from mid-1948 to early 1949 have it too, so go by the barrel's model marking.
- Receiver grooves for tip-off scope mounts were added in mid-1954. A grooved receiver means after July 1954.
- Factory-scoped Model 72s, including the scope-only G7250R and G7260R, were made from 1938 to 1941, before grooved receivers.
- Fewer than half the barrels carry a two-digit year stamp on the underside; the practice ended around 1956, and the stamp dates the barrel, not the final assembly.
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.