So, that video's on standby until I can get more info. I did what I could looking at markings in gun shops and taking notes, but couldn't get enough of a sample size just on my own. of AI&P Tactical, were supportive, but didn't have the specific info I needed. One forum even deleted some of the discussion about it. I don't know if I posted about it here, but I posted on other, more history/research-oriented forums, and got pretty much no response about it.
These prefixes are pretty well understood up through the mid-2000s, but I can't find any definite info on exactly when they switched to the recent 'RS' prefix, and now it seems that 2017 or 2018 saw the introduction of a brand-new 'CC' prefix, though I'd need to look at more new 870s to confirm that the 'CC' code is the new standard prefix, and not a special-case one.Ī year or two back, I started working on pre-production for a video on dating an 870, since it was such a frequent question, and there were no good, complete resources on it online anywhere. Those ranges are roughly 5-year periods, though some are wider or narrower, and some years may be transitional where both prefixes were stamped. 870 serial numbers have letter prefixes (or a lack thereof for very early guns) at the start of the serial number that can be used to narrow down the manufacture date to within a specific range of years.