How can I tell the year my rifle was made?

Call up Remington at 800-243-9700 and give them the serial number. They can tell you what vintage it is.

Diamond D,
called Remington took him about 20 seconds to look it up. It's my 700 ADL 243 made in 1976. I was curious because it was from my grandpa.

Jarrod: I finally found the reference page that I have regarding the Remington barrel markings (not serial numbers!) that define what month and what year the Remingtons were produced in!
The page has the encrypted "letter" stamps that designate the month of the year from and the years from January 1940 through December of 1975!
In brief the month is designated with the first letter of the "code" on top of the barrel just in front of the action. The options are the acronym "BLACKPOWDERX" - note 12 letters in this acronym. One for each month of the year.
IF a B is the first letter that indicates the month of January! And it follows in monthly order up to "X" being December!
Now for the next letter(s) of the barrel code. If the next letter is "J" that stands for the year 1940! In 1943 Remington began using double letters for the year of manufacture in their code "MM" that indicated 1943 and on up through ZZ being 1953! No letters of "OO" or "QQ" or "VV" were used for year identification.
In 1954 Remington then began the "alphabet code" for the year of manufacture again at the letter "A". Continuing in order (again omitting the letter "O" and "I" and "Q" and "V" as a year designation) "O" would have been used in the year 1967 but it was skipped and "P" took its place.
Maybe I will try to post the year codes from 1940 to 1975 for those interested.
1940 - J
1941 - K
1942 - L
1943 - MM
1944 - NN
1945 - PP
1946 - RR Looks like the "Q's" were not used also!
1947 - SS
1948 - TT
1949 - UU
1950 - WW
1951 - XX
1952 - YY
1953 - ZZ
1954 - A
1955 - B
1956 - C
1957 - D
1958 - E
1959 - F
1960 - G
1961 - H
1962 - J Looks like they skipped "I" also
1963 - K
1964 - L
1965 - M
1966 - N
1967 - P
1968 - R
1969 - S
1970 - T
1971 - U
1972 - W skipped the "V" it appears
1973 - X
1974 - Y
1975 - Z
I hope this helps some folks out there and I hope you can understand the BLACKPOWDERX acronym for the months of each year. The month single letter designation always came first the next letter(s) designated the year that Remington was made.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy