Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles winchester extreme weather - safety is LOUD.

I still haven't figured out why it is difficult to put your thumb on top of the wing and ride the safety off quietly. I've done it for three decades or so. I figured it out when I was 14, with my first rifle.

But this does make for funny reading! And makes me very nervous to be in the woods on public hunting ground with others around.

Just be thankful you don't live here in Oregon. You never know when JeffO is going to do another shoot thru the brush at targets thread.... .. Oh well, at least I'll hear him when he flicks the safety off or when he's cussing because he can't get the nosler box open...

Just fake a cough to cover the sound of the safety. The deer will never notice you flicking it off.

Funny- I'd forgotten about that brush test until the other day I got a new iPhone and it reorganized all my pics.... I was scrolling through and was like, WTF are these pictures of targets in bushes?! Oooohhh... right.

The results were interesting. Predictably, if you challenge a common assumption, it upsets people. I think that goes quadruple here. Quintuple. Octuple. Kazillionatuple.

That %#£€! Nosler box kicked my ass. Whadaya gonna do........... sometimes you get the box, sometimes the box gets you. It was funny some of the other people it got. Who were brave enough to admit it I mean.

Jeff I highly doubt you've ever been close enough to a deer to hear the safety going off. Most likely you already fuggered chitt up and it was totally aware of your presence..

You voting for Clinton again?

I've been close enough to deer to poke them with my rifle barrel and they never knew I was there. Ok, so THAT just happened once, but it was 3 deer. Momma and twins.... blacktail/whitetail hybrids in fact. Hint: a face net, like turkey hunters use, works wonders, as does holding perfectly still for a very long time as does really knowing an area (thermals) so you can set up your stand position well.

Near that same spot had a family of bobcats within 20 feet and for quite a while. They didn't know I was there until the weird-looking tree got tired of them and raised its finger from its rifle and said "boo!".

I've been very close to a lot of deer. Believe it or not, IDGAF. That's not me saying I couldn't kill them with a noisy safety. That's me saying, I can relate to the OP's concern.

Just found this thread.

Hole

Lee

Fugk

Jeff,

You have the be the stupidest woman trapped in a dude's body currently walking the earth.



Travis

Oregon is about as close as I want him / her / it / that to me.

Sometimes I still have trouble believing what I see here.

I worry more about the wind direction than a loud safety.

So last night after work I slid into the LGS and played with a few different M70 safeties. I tried a super grade, a compact fwt, and two extreme weathers, one of which I might buy.

If you can't make them go onto "fire" quietly, you shouldn't be handling a gun in the first place. ALL OF THEM I tried were easily manipulated quietly if you wanted them to be. All of them also "snapped" if you just flicked it forward.

I can't believe this thread has gone on this long. But considering JeffO is participating, I'm not all that surprised. Did you get that box of bullets open yet?

Just bought a Ruger Hawkeye 257 Roberts. I'll probably scare them 2 sections away with that.

I don't even remember a time when I flicked a safety when I saw a deer. Chamber a round, and kill it!

And in walks stupid.

Damnit I posted once wasn't that enough to kill this thread

This thread is a few yrs old but questions regarding the model 70s 3 position safety have been asked on several forums without receiving many good answers. I'm not sure this is even a good answer but it can help you pretty much silence your safety. I’m not a gunsmith or anything but have spoken with a few about it as I’ve owned a model 70 for over 20 yrs and just purchased another earlier this yr.

Apparently the safety works by a spring plunger/rod that detents in one of two circular divots. It can be made a bit quieter by either polishing the end of that rod or I believe filing it down. The latter as I’m told is a bit tricky and hence many gunsmiths don’t want to deal with it because the safety on these guns is directly linked to the trigger is such a way that if the safety is filed down the trigger must be adjusted and in the end it can be more trouble than it’s worth.

All that being said, I’ve always quieted mine by using two fingers (as you mentioned) and adding a little upward pressure as I slowly move it forward. This little bit of lifting pretty much silences the sound on both my rifles. Conversely, adding downward pressure makes it louder.

Hope that helps.

I would not risk removing material from the safety. If your ham fisted you can make any safety loud. Exercise a little finesse and you will be fine and noise free.

If the resistance / noise is coming from the detent ( ball in a partial hole), perhaps you can break the edge of the hole ( slight bevel, or use an abrasive round stone in a drill about 25-50% larger diameter than the detent hole. If your detent is not a sphere, but a rounded rod, try stoning a flatter , larger diameter contour on the end of the plunger/rod. If it DOES have the elongated rod plunger ( and not a sphere), I’ d stone that piece first to a slightly flatter / larger diameter round, and not alter the detent hole itself. If you screw up, the plunger rod is cheaper to replace. Start there.

I did this ( slight bevel added to detent HOLE in the spring steel) with a very stiff tang safety on a Mossberg 500 20 gauge, when I replaced the plastic tang button with an aluminum one. It has a sphere on a piece of spring steel under the tang button, not a rounded rod/plunger. Worked great. Use the smallest “ next larger round abrasive stone” first, and test it. If you go too large too fast, you put too much angle on the bevel, and don’t get a positive detent.

If the resistance is coming from the engagement of the safety on the cocking piece, you may need to stone the rotating edge of the safety to have a smoother transition. Polish and lube it to test.

Could be a little of both. Ball/detent hole angle and safety/ cocking piece contact angle. Go slow and test often.

14 + pages on the audible safety click. Geez.

Many commenters have not physically handled a M70 EW from the era in question and are basing their comment on their experience with older M70 or Kimber safety's. The EW in question has a LOUD safety. Imagine taking a metal rod and rapping a fiberglass stock smartly. It's that loud. And, at least the couple I played with, the spring pressure was such that to "ride it forward" as one can (and I do) with say a Kimber doesn't really work. It really wants to snap forward.

Insurmountable? Hardly. But we tend to want our rifles "right". And this isn't.

For flocks sake, give it up. I’ve had several EW’s from the first year production. If you can’t make that safety work, a box of bullets is insurmountable.