Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors 6.5x55

Saw this one a couple days ago. NH stainless classic 6.5x55 fwt. To me the perfect hunting rifle.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=552419059

Any one know how many of them were made? Price is now more then I would pay since I'd be shooting it not stashing it.

No idea how many were made, but the couple of M70 Swedes that I have come across were selling at a premium....

Nice rifle but I don't really care for that big ugly recoil pad.

Kind of unnecessary on that caliber, I agree. I do have a big ugly recoil pad on my Ruger .375 though.

I like it. The only determent would be it's a late production USRAC. Probably 2005 or 2006.

While it may be worth a little more than current Portuguese rifle it made no sense to pay $1700. The only country that cartridge has following is Sweden (along with .308 and .30-06). The 7-08 and 7x57 will do just as well and .270 and 7x64 offer better performance.

You make my head hurt sometimes.. A following has nothing to do with it. Winchester produced very few 6.5 swedes and Winchester produced a lot less stainless rifles in std calibers so combine those two and you a pretty rare specimen in a model 70.

Slavek must not be a rifle looney or a collector, otherwise he'd understand the draw.

I have a Winchester/USRA 70 Fwt from the 1986 European Run that I took to Botswana in 1988 and used to shoot all of my plains game, except for the wart hog. The PH was a little concerned about an American using a 6.5x55, but I proved to him that I could shoot the rifle and knew where to shoot the animals that I had licenses to shoot. The only animal that took more than 1 shot was a bull eland that I shot 3 times, even though each of the 3 bullet would have been, by itself, fatal. The eland just took a few extra seconds to die.

I have a regular 6x55 featherweight and it is one handy rifle. A little picky on loads, but adequate for hunting. It just feel right.

Yep. You are feeding the troll though...

I know but one day he will get it lol

He gets it as often as a guy that's been married for 60 years....

I had one of the mid-80's European market 6.5x55 Featherweights which I snatched out of mid air when they first became available. Out of all the rifles I kick myself for ever letting go of, that one is the king. I have rued that decision for 20 years now. As I recall, it was throated much like the Swedish Mausers I had been playing with, necessitating long OAL's for my handloads which fortuitously still fed through the magazine. I even remember my pet load for it: 129 Hornady spire point/47 grains IMR-4831/Norma brass/RWS LR primer. I stumbled onto that combo early on and stuck by its very sub-MOA performance. A couple of truck loads of animals fell to that rifle over the ten years I carried it.

Maybe one day...

I've got a Blue/Wood 6.5x55 Classic. It is a great little rifle so far. Still working with it a little, but I can't find much to not love about it. It'll run the 130 AB's around 2900, and the 155 Mega's around 2600. Still monkeying around a little with the finalized loads, but it is coming along decent.

I'd love to have a 6.5 Swede. Chambered in a Winchester model 70 would make it ever sweeder...

one of the holy grails of post 64 classics, I'm generally always on the look out for one.

I once had 2 of the 1986 European 70 XTR Fwts, but got greedy for a little extra speed and rechambered one of them to 6.5-284. It is my fastest 6.5-284, but I think that it would have retained more value if it was still a 6.5x55.

I have a Model 70 SS Ultimate Classic in 6.5x55. I bought it on here from Redneck and it's worth every penny I paid!

The lack of a stainless 6.5x55 in 1996/97 was the reason that I switched to the 260, as Remington has just introduced the 260 and the Model Seven in stainless/synthetic. I currently have 11 6.5x55s; 5 commercial rifles, 5 Swedish Mausers, and 1 Norwegian Krag. My favorite is the Ruger 77R that I reconfigured as a 77RSI, but without the open sights. I recognize that mannlicher stocked rifles without open sights look at bit odd, but, for me, open sights are 100% superfluous, so all they do is catch on twigs and vine when hunting thick cover.