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How old is my Miroku MK70 shotgun?
I have acquired a secondhand Miroku MK70, and wonder how old it is. I enclose a note of the serial number. Also, I wonder if it is a handmade gun?
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Shooting technical advice
MIKE GEORGE
The MK70 was introduced in the mid 1990s, so your gun can only be about 15 years old at the most.
The real key to age is not the serial number alone, but the two letters which follow it.
These letters form a date code.
It works like this: Z=1, Y=2, X=3, W=4, V=5, T=6, R=7, P=8, N=9 and M=0.
Thus, for instance, a gun with a serial number ending NT would have been made in 1996.
Your Miroku would have been machine-made, but with a degree of hand finishing.
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