Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ganyana on Rifle Power

My CRF experience is not as great as most since I'm left handed and until recently few CRF rifles were available to us.

But I do understand that the geometry of them has to be right - they are a total system and all parts of that system have to interact with each other properly - the magazine has to be right for the cartridges, the extractor has to be tensioned right; even the magazine follower has a role. Almost all factory LH Winchesters I've owned will not adequately grab the cartridge rim out of the magazine, particularly the last one. That's another bug, all LH CRF rifles I've seen have right handed magazine followers. But anyway, unless the extractor hook is tensioned enough it won't grab the case rim. I could feed a round halfway into the chamber, withdraw the bolt and the case would just lie there on top of the follower or the next round depending on which side it was. The round had to be almost fully chambered before it was pushed up under the hook sufficiently.

One of the most positive Model 70's I've owned was a .270 WSM Featherweight - those rounds would positively jump up under that extractor when they left the magazine, but I understand that the first WSM rifles were buggers to get to feed right in CRF actions.

Another one was a Model 70 .375 H&H. I bought some Williams steel extractors to replace the MIM models on factory Winchesters and by accident put the .473 case head extractor on the .375 bolt. That tighter spring steel extractor absolutely held those cases in place! I was really tempted to leave it there.

Anyway, as MD has stated in various ways, if a rifle is reliable then it's reliable, if not then it's not, same with scopes. It will usually show you early on where it will break or it won't break even after years of use (not counting severe abuse).



But really, after going through a lot rifles, if'n I could do it all over (get my young eyes back but still have to be left handed), I'd take one of the two K98's my father brought back from Europe, throw on a sporter stock and a peep sight, have a gunsmith straighten the bolt handle - which is not hard to work even for a left hander - but otherwise just leave it as perfectly designed, properly interacting military 8X57, flag safety and all, and do all the hunting I've done all over again.