Production dates on Estes BP motors...

This may be a silly question, but does Estes stamp/print production dates on their BP motors? I'm looking at several "numbers" on various motors that I thought were dates, but they do not match what is printed on the bar code tag that describes the contents of the package. Just curious...

Reply to
Bruce Sexton
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bruce:

5.12 How can I tell the age of my Estes motors?

Estes uses a date code on their rocket motors. It's of the form XXYZZ (example, 25T9) where the first number is the day of the month of manufacture, the letter is a code indicating year of manufacture, and the last number is the month (1 = January, 12 = December). Date codes run progressively through the alphabet, as follows:

T 1989 U 1990 V 1991 W 1992 X 1993 Y 1994 Z 1995 A 1996 - Estes cycled back to the beginning of the alphabet B 1997 C 1998 D 1999 ? E 2000 ? F 2001 ? G 2002 ? H 2003 ? I 2004 ? J 2005 ? K 2006 ?

from the RMR FAQ

I notice that "newer" EStes motors have numbers like A050301 or A052703 or A111601 or A031003

I can only assume at some point they changed the dating number

Those last 4 examples could be May 05,2001, May 27,2003, Novemeber 16, 2001, March 10,2003

Does anybody know if Estes chnaged their dating numbers and when they did? I have 9B6 while newer E9 have 061401 which may correspond to june 14,2001? Hope this helps

shockie B)

Reply to
shockwaveriderz

Interesting - I'm looking at a B4-4 I recently purchased and the bar code tag says "Production Date: 2003" and the tag also includes (04/03). On the engine itself is "A081803". So it looks like the year is definitely 2003, but is the month April (like the tag) or August (like the engine)?

Reply to
Bruce Sexton

I would venture a guess that the production date actually is aug 18,2003, as nfpa 1125 requires the date code to be on the motor casing itself. (unless there isn't room, then there is an excpetion allowing it to be on the packaging the motor comes in)

shockie B)

Reply to
shockwaveriderz

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