This HW55S has a serial number on only the barrel. It’s not from Beeman. It’s from ARH. The receiver is not numbered. It’s as new in condition. Not exactly sure how to date it. Thank you 
HW/Weihrauch HW55 Standard date-of-manufacturing
- Thread starter Bear-of-Grayling
- Start date
No problem.
Be sure to register your HWs on the database, it helps expand the knowledge available to all.
Be sure to register your HWs on the database, it helps expand the knowledge available to all.
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I highly recommend Weihrauch owners registering their airguns ONLY if they have a receipt and/or they're the original owner and actually know when it was purchased.
Using the HW DB to date a Weihrauch, then entering that same Weihrauch into the DB using the date the DB gave you, can potentially introduce errors. That's because the dates given by the DB are often approximations based on previous, more reliable data.
The database will only get more refined and accurate by new and accurate data, not by looping its output back to it.
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That's very interesting - it's the oldest 55 I've seen with serial on the barrel, so very helpful to date that transition. Does it have 13mm or 11mm scope grooves?
The serial makes sense, as ARH was in business into the early 80's and thus overlapped Beeman several years. The oldest Beeman 55 I've seen is no. 594774, an "M" from 1975 with serial on the receiver and older 13mm scope grooves.
As an aside, HW 55's have an assembly number stamped several places on the action. On older guns with serial on the receiver, they used all or part of the serial number. Newer ones with serial on the barrel continued the practice, but with an arbitrary 3-digit number. These shots are all from the same gun, a Beeman-marked HW 55T.
The serial makes sense, as ARH was in business into the early 80's and thus overlapped Beeman several years. The oldest Beeman 55 I've seen is no. 594774, an "M" from 1975 with serial on the receiver and older 13mm scope grooves.
As an aside, HW 55's have an assembly number stamped several places on the action. On older guns with serial on the receiver, they used all or part of the serial number. Newer ones with serial on the barrel continued the practice, but with an arbitrary 3-digit number. These shots are all from the same gun, a Beeman-marked HW 55T.
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Good point, but...the database contains other interesting information, and the original purchase date is just not something you can know for the vast majority of vintage guns. Since the list is careful to distinguish unconfirmed dates (they are shown in red), it seems a shame to leave interesting oldsters off the list for lack of one unobtainable smidgen of data.
Also, serials of vintage HW rifles, at least, appear to all fall in the same sequence (i.e., the OP's rifle does not indicate that over 730,000 HW 55's had been built by 1979 - but that many air rifles in total). Any dating error from extrapolation wouldn't be much greater than, say, the gap between manufacture and retail sale dates.
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