Winchester BAR serial number sequence.

[WSC]

Whats Serial Number did Winchester start with, When production began on the Browning Automatic Rifle, early 1918. Did they start with number one or number 100000? Does anyone know?

[BRMCII]

Depends on which #1 you are seeking. Browning's original handmade machine rifle is marked "1".

Four prototype rifles were manufactured to test different mechanical details with the first of these marked "01".

Colt was the first maker of the BAR and agreed to share production with Winchester, NESA and Marlin.

Colt's first production BAR was #12701.

Winchester was the first to actually get serial production going but I don't know what was the serial of the first BAR off their line.

The serial # of Winchester's first production BAR must be recorded somewhere. Same for the other makers.

Above info from Jim Ballou's BAR book. FWIW

[WSC]

Thank you.

[jim c 351]

WSC,

Colt was assigned serial # 12,701-25,000. Only about 9,000 guns delivered.

Winchester was assigned serial # 64,001 -200,000 and an additional 20,000 later. Only 28,000 guns delivered

Marlin was assigned serial # 23,000- 64,000 and 245,000- 260,000. Only 16,000 delivered.

Jim C