A Friday or a Monday Winchester

[junebug]

A friend brought a model 70 270 WSM rifle to the range yesterday to sight in. The gun was drilled and tapped so far out of line @ 25 yds after bore sighting it pointed 2 ft. left of the target. Looking from either end of the gun the scope was way off the centerline of the gun. He may get it back with an adjustable base but this one is BAD! The only real fix would be a new receiver, but he is not the original owner of the rifle so do not know if Winchester will fix or not. As is it would be about perfect for a 90 mph ,90 degree cross wind from the left at something less than 100 yds, or a tomato stake. LOL Bubba is alive and well and works in the rifle industry too.

[bitterroot]

I feel his pain. I just picked up a 1975 Marlin 39A that has the front sight ramp drilled & tapped at about the 11 o'clock position on the barrel. I shoot with a lot of 39A owners (and one 39A collector) and they've never seen anything like it.
Fortunately, mine is an easy fix.
The good news is that the rifle shot so badly that it was rarely shot and, subsequently, is in excellent condition.

[bradshaw]

Sept 4, 2023 9:08:20 GMT -5 junebug said:

A friend brought a model 70 270 WSM rifle to the range yesterday to sight in. The gun was drilled and tapped so far out of line @ 25 yds after bore sighting it pointed 2 ft. left of the target. Looking from either end of the gun the scope was way off the centerline of the gun. He may get it back with an adjustable base but this one is BAD! The only real fix would be a new receiver, but he is not the original owner of the rifle so do not know if Winchester will fix or not. As is it would be about perfect for a 90 mph ,90 degree cross wind from the left at something less than 100 yds, or a tomato stake. LOL Bubba is alive and well and works in the rifle industry too.

*****

These stories of woe have plagued manufacturing for years. John Linebaught and his knife maker and former powder monkey friend Jerry Halfrich each bought a blued USRAC Winchester M-70 in .416 Remington. John and Jerry liked ‘em real well, especially after John shortened the barrels a taste. The first USRAC Winchester M-70 that I handled was with a silhouette shooter in Mississippi, a stainless short action .308 target rifle. My first of the Winchester remake, an M-70 Classic stainless in .338 Win Mag, was & is a great hunting rifle. That rifle is mentioned in one of the Nosler manuals. Avid hunter & rifleman Chub Eastman of Nosler Bullets backed up my impression of the USRAC Winchester.

As the group who formed the United States Repeating Arms Company began to unravel, quality, so I’m told, took a dive. Barrel-to-receiver misalignment was one problem. Yet, I’ve also seen barrel/receiver misalignment on Remington's and Weatherby’s. During a hunt in Alabama, about twenty years ago, I was asked to sight-in a pair of new Weatherby’s. There wasn’t enough windage in the Leupold scopes to accommodate error built into the rifles, which included off-center holes for scope mounting.

It’s not right to ask a good scope to correct a bad rifle. To adjust the erector tube off to one side of the scope tube forces light rays to do a dogleg before reaching our eye. We may not recognize the distortion, but it puts our brain in discomfort.
David Bradshaw

[nicholst55]

I once bought a new Remington 700 that had one scope mount hole off-center. That was rather challenging to make work.

[tj3006]

I have had a bunch of model 70s over the years.
Both pre 64 and the newer classic models. When I could absorb recoil better, I had Classics in .338 win and 7mmSTW. The .338 was excellent,225 grain Bullets sub MOA.
The STW was Very good at 1st, But once I found the sweet spot, it was the most accurate load I have ever encountered in a big game rifle. I wanted to 3200 FPS load with a 160 grain Accubond. I tried lots of powders. But I think it was RL-25 that got me there. And I fired a 3 shot group that was .17 center to center.
And it would put 3 into well under .50 almost every time. I sold it to a Dr. at the range one day, with a 4.5 X14 Leupold for 1200.00.
...tj

[bigbore5]

Never owned nor wanted a post-64 Winchester. But I did get a few newer '94's that had cocked front sights.

[bradshaw]

Sept 4, 2023 21:25:24 GMT -5 bigbore5 said:

Never owned nor wanted a post-64 Winchester. But I did get a few newer '94's that had cocked front sights.

*****

The Winchester Model 70 has as slick a BOLT LIFT as any rifle, ever. Aside from the rigid action which supports a bull-pipe barrel, the effortless cock-on-opening stroke made the M-70 the top bolt rifle in long range competition. Remington’s Mike Walker Model 700 eventually overcame its stiffer bolt lift to take advantage of lighter, tube-stiff, vibration-resistant cylindrical receiver to provide superb match rifles.

The Springfield Model 1903 .30-06 preceded the Winchester with super-light, cock-on-opening bolt lift and stroke. One day, during a rapid fire stage, High Power Rifle great (and mentor) Sam Burkehalter thumbed a reload from the 5-shot stopper clip. The ammo spewed beside his prone body holding the ’03. Sam cooly loaded and squeezed the last five rounds of his 10-shot string to clean the stage. A smooth stroking bolt counts big time. I took same advantage of my Model 70 Classic .338 Win Mag to stroke four Nosler Partitions into an elk disappearing into the trees on uneven ground at 200 yards. Tom Hahn, the two-fisted logger who took me into this ranch, claimed the first shot did the job. It’s just that for about 40 yards the bull didn’t know it. I had dropped prone on a decline, which forced a difficult upward angle of fire. While it may not have mattered after that first shot, a stiff-lifting bolt would’ve slowed, and increased difficulty, of succeeding shots.

(As a footnote, my out-of-position prone could have done me damage, were I taking recoil of a .338 Remington Ultra Mag or .378 Weatherby.)

Experiencing and hunting with Winchester M-70 Classics from both ends of the quality spectrum, my .338 stays!
David Bradshaw

[rickiesrevenge]

A new receiver isn't the only fix. It could be tig welded to fill the old holes and new ones drilled and tapped in the correct locations.

Aaron