I have gotten into trap shooting lately. I originally was using a Mossberg 835, but pumps do not seem to be used by serious trap shooters (yeah, yeah, you were using a flintlock and outshot all the guys with Cesar Guarneris...). I have also tried a number of other things that worked at first but didn't function in the heat of competition. Anyway, I didn't want to go the super expensive custom shotgun route, so I found a used Browning BT-99 for $650 at the Oaks show last year. The BT-99 is one of the workhorses of the trap world. It didn't quite fit me right, so I've decided to sell it (but not on the shotgun forum) - but it's a fixed choke version. So I went about looking for information. There's a lot of information in the serial number. Browning uses 5 digits, 2 letters, and a three digit after number. The letters stand for the year of manufacture. My particular BT-99 is #####RN309. The R stands for 7 and the N for 9, so this shotgun was manufactured in 1979. The first 5 digits are the number of the gun off the production line (ie, 00001 would be the first). The 309 indicates the model. I have NOT been able to find what this number stands for. I called Browning, and they couldn't find it either. This is not a particularly special-looking shotgun, nothing fancy. If anyone knows what 309 stands for, please comment or drop me a line. Other pieces of information were found with a ruler - 14 1/8 LOP, 32 inch barrel. What about the choke? I called Browning and they told me to open the shotgun and look on the left side of the barrel. There was 32 (barrel length) and **. So I looked up Browning choke markings and found that *=Full, *- =Improved Modified, ** =Modified, **- =Improved Cylinder, **$ =Skeet, and *** =Cylinder Bore. The sales guy said that this was an Improved Modified, so he was wrong (shocking, a sales guy being wrong), the choke on this is Modified.
So, I have a 1979, Browning BT-99 32" barrel, fixed Modified choke. Last lacking piece of information is what does 309 mean (other than cabalistically). Thanks in advance for all other information.