Winchester 94AE|Winchester Rifles|Forum|Winchester Collector

Kenpo5 said
Is this what is called a rebounding hammer?
  

Yes.

There a couple of reasons why the WACA Dates of Manufacture resource tool does not list the serial number on your Model 94AE.

1. Your 94AE is not a true “Winchester” product.  Instead, it was manufactured by the U.S. Repeating Arms Company (USRACo). The USRACo leased the trademarked “WINCHESTER” brand name from Olin Industries (the owner of Winchester since 1831).  Winchester (Olin Industries) got out of the firearms manufacturing business in December 1980.

2. The USRACo became a wholly owned subsidiary of Fabrique Nationale Herstal (FN) in 1989 during bankruptcy proceedings. FN never released any of the manufacturing records, and when they shut down the New Haven, CT factory they either took the records with them, or destroyed them.

3.  When I originally created the DOM look-up tables for the WACA website, it was for the “Pre-64” Winchester Models only.  However, due to the increased interest in all of the Winchester models (pre-1981), I have slowly been adding more information to the various model tables that remained in production beyond 1963.  In most cases, the post-1963 information is an educated estimate as there are very minimal records for the 1964 – 1980 production years.

Now, regarding your Model 94AE, based on its configuration, it was manufactured sometime after late 1992 (Cross-bolt safety introduction), but before 2003 when the Tang safety was introduced.

Bert