Except for a short period of time from 08/99 thru 10/01, Remington has stamped a two (2) or, in some cases three (3), letter assembly date code on the left side of the barrel, just forward of the receiver.
the first letter is the month and the second letter is the year, except that double digits were used from 1943 thru 1953 to indicate the year of manufacture; MM, NN, PP, RR, SS, TT, UU. WW, XX, YY, and ZZ.
The twelve (12) months are always represented by the letters in order of January thru December:
B - Jan
L - Feb
A - Mar
C - Apr
K - May
P - Jun
O - Jul
W - Aug
D - Sep
E - Oct
R - Nov
X - Dec
There are obviously more than 26 years, so the letters A thru Z have been reused multiple times and in some sequences, some letters weren't used or they were used out of their normal, A thru Z, order. You can find a table of the assembly codes on-line in multiple places. The assembly code table at
www.remingtonsociety.org syncs with the table that John Lacy has in his book on the Model 700.