Webley and Scott Stingray age ?

[Fenman]

Sorry for the necropost. The OP only posted a couple of times, so I don't suppose he'll mind.

I have a Webley Stingray Carbine with the serial number 897512, which is stamped on a bit wonky.

Is there any way I can find the exact year it was produced?

[Geezer]

I have a personal completely unproven theory that Webley serials in the 80s do not follow a precise date order.

I’ve seen enough higher number guns that seemed to be earlier in their features than lower number ones (across the Vulcan/Viscount and their myriad variants 1979-2005) to be sceptical.

My entirely uninformed theory is that they may have allocated “blocks” of numbers to particular models, rather randomly.

If anyone on here knows, it will be slug-gun or Josie and John.