Greetings!
I was given this really nice pump action rifle. My digging revealed that they were manufactured from the early '30's to the early '60's. I was wondering what year this one was manufactured so I contacted Savage and they stated that they send all that information to Cody Firearms and told me to contact them... So I did. They did not fill me with confidence that giving them a "Donation" was going to reveal anything because they stated that they did not have 29-A in their database...

So I am hoping that one of you can help me...

Serial number stamped on the receiver is 22507 with an L under it.

Thanks!

Henk

might want to ask in the Savage section too

Henk, The 29-A came out about 1938 from what I can find, replacing the Model 29. They had checkered wood and an octagon barrel standard with a changed to a round barrel in the early 1940's. probably around 1941, yours would be toward the middle of the 1938 to 1941 range, round barrel started with serial numbers in the mid to high 30,000's, the lowest number I've seen on a round barrel is in the 39,000's.

Savage made house brands of this model under various names like RANGER, WESTERFIELD, WHIPPET... They all were in the same serial number sequence and the Savage marked ones had the serial numbers followed by an 'L' and the house brands with a 'K' to identify the difference in the records.

The available records for these 22's end about 1933 so it would not do you much good to send for a letter. In fact it may get you some wrong information, I've seen a letter for a 29-A that puts it in the early 1930's because the person writing the record looked up the information for a Model 29 thinking the 29-A was just a variation of the 29 and not a separate model with separate serial numbers.

Thanks Gene, narrowing it down to 3 years helps a lot. I will try copying the post to the Savage forum

Interesting info, i've got a 29-b that belonged to my grandfather. Its about as new, neat little gun. I would guess he bought it in the 1960s

guy57, 29-B's should have a date code on them - on the barrel just in front of the receiver should be a one or two digit number followed by a letter in a small circle, the letter is the date code, the number is probably the inspector. I've only seen one 29-B where this was missing but sometimes it may not be stamped well enough to read the letter. There also are several changes that can be used to roughly date them. The codes started in 1949 with 'A' skipping only 'O' & 'Q'. The 29-B had the same action as the 29-A and replaced the 29-A in 1950, date code 'B'. They were last cataloged in 1967. Late 29-A's and none of the 29-B's had serial numbers.

The OP also posted this in the Savage Collectors forum and there is more information on the 29-A's posted there.

Old photobucket picture of some 29's , top 6 are 29's, the rest are 29-A's, The top 4 are the earliest with 3-point checkering and the top 3 have the bottom of the forearm checkered, top 9 have octagon barrels. They are arranged by serial number with the earliest at the top.


Here are some non-checkered ones, top 3 are 29's and the checkered examples timewise fit in after them and before the 4th down. The changes to the 29-B's are marked with only one version not pictured and only noted.

GeneB, circle on the barrel in front of the receiver has 15T in it. A Chicopee Falls gun. Sorry i didn't reply sooner, got kinda busy. So would the T be a 1966 dated gun?

Guy57, You are correct on the date for the T date code as 1966. This is also the last year the 29 was listed in their catalogs. This was several years after the company moved to Westfield, MA (by 1961) so the gun was not really made in Chicopee Falls. They were still using an old barrel stamp (or using up old barrels), I have never seen a 29-B marked with the Westfield address and I'm thinking that none were ever stamped with it.

When they moved to Chicopee Falls they still used some Utica marked barrels on guns and you will find them using both addresses, I have examples of 1950 date coded 29-A's with both addresses and both on guns just before the use of the date codes.

GeneB,

What a great collection !!

Best,

Chuck

GeneB, thank you for the info sir, interesting. It was the only gun i knew my grandfather to own, so it's going nowhere. I probably shot it more than anyone else, when i was 9,10,11 yrs old or so.