Fred,
Unfortunately, this info is not printed in any one place, and for the most part is not printed at all. My info comes from 20 years of collecting, shooting, researching, talking to other collectors in the know such as BrianJ, and former factory employees concerning these fine rifles. Herb Houze, in his book on the 52, really did a great job on the development on the model 52, especially the early variations. Unfortunately he just kind of left the D&E dangling, and the info he did print was questionable at best and some parts are downright wrong. It's almost like he got in a hurry to finish it up and did not do his due diligence.
I was fortunate to have a friend who was a former Winchester executive that hooked me up with some of the later drawings as well as those responsible for their production.
One of the major hurdles was trying to get an accurate count on the number of 52E's actually manufactured. For you Precision Shooting readers, you might recall an article written by George Stephens back about 5 years?? ago. In the article he requested anyone that had a D or E model send him their serial number with a description of the gun and its configuration. This has been ongoing research and as of the last few months, the number of E's that have been accounted for is approximately 200 rifles. That pretty much dispelled the statement of Houze that only 37 were made! I would encourage anyone that has a D or E to please send their info to George. Hopefully when enough info is accumulated he can be persuaded to write another article clearing up some of misleading info that is being passed around currently.
Anyone interested in helping out can forward their information directly to George at
geoice@gwu.edu, or you can send to me and I will forward on to George. My email is
seewinr@aol.com. All information will be kept confidential and no person's name and s/n will ever be published unless permission is granted by the owner.
Also, I'm always happy to try to answer any specific questions you might have on your 52, just email me at the above email address.
Steve