Mar 01, 2004 Finding date of manufacture on Beretta 92FS Registered Users do not see the above ad. Hi all, I am curious as to whether or not you can figure the manufacture date/age of a handgun by the serial number itself. Jul 26, 2017 What year is my beretta? Not in the serial numbers but next to the proof mark. Would I be right in thinking this is the date of manufacture?
To find the year of proof of your Beretta Shotgun you’ll need to find the Date Code. This will either be Roman Numerals for earlier guns or two letters for later guns. The position of this varies from gun to gun but is usually hidden from view without breaking the gun down. Here seen at the rear of the barrels, underneath the chambers on an Over and Under and below on a Side by Side.
The position varies a little more on the Semi-Autos but is usually somewhere towards the receiver end of the barrels again as seen on this AL391 Search.
Why does Beretta treat the manufacture date of their civilian pistols as some kind of secret? All I can get from the official and unofficial Beretta websites is 'the only way to get the manufacture date of your Beretta 92FS is to call Beretta USA.' Well, I don't WANT to wait on hold with a Maryland distributor, and I don't WANT to provide the serial numbers of my firearms over the phone. Can we start a Beretta serial number survey, leaving off the last few numbers, for those brave and patient souls who have actually CALLED the 'Sphinx'?! Why should it be so hard to learn when my pistols were manufactured?
Ooooooh, maybe this is it. Steel that fails after a certain period of time in the pistols? Gee, Beretta, maybe you'd like to come out from behind the curtain and tell your customers when you built their pistols. The Beretta 92FS pistols I have seen are preceded by 'BER'. Some, but not all, have the suffix 'Z'. I'd like to know why the 92FS pistols I have seen are preceded by BER when the information gleaned from my research suggests that has a special meaning (not just 'Made by Beretta, USA'), specifically that they are for reserve. And I'd like to know what the 'Z' means, since for Beretta shotguns, 'z' means it was a discounted demo model.
And JimLay, sending the serial number of a pistol over the internet is almost as stupid as running up and down the street scattering blank checks and screaming out your social security number. Has nothing to do with government conspiracies. Purely a private matter, to avoid legal problems.