Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Winchester mod 70 SA extreme

I have never had a chance to play with the model 70 thinking about getting an extreme in 308.Can Somebody tell me if it's a genuine short action ?

It is. I’ve had a few of the BACO newer M70s and they’ve all shot well.

What TDN said. I haven't had any of the Portugese versions, but certainly true of the BACO models.

Can I mildly hi-jack the thread and ask if anyone has bought a new model 70 EW assembled in Portugal that they have been disappointed in? Are the stocks that come with them pretty good? I don't particularly care for the barrel flutes on them but otherwise they seem about right.

The new Win 70 short action cartridges are all housed in the WSM action. Max feeding mag length on mine was in the 2.84"-2.85" range.

As for the second question, a little over a year ago I got a Portugal assembled EW in .308. I tried several different loads in it, and for the most part it was a 1.5" - 2" rifle.... Not good enough, so I sent it back to Winchester and they sent me a new one. The replacement didn't shoot any better than the first, again working with several handloads in promising combinations. I then requested and received a refund from Winchester, and went and bought a 6.5 Montana. I've had 3 other FN Winchesters (SC built) that all shot well (one was real a track driver). I'm not sure what the issue was with the .308s maybe just a few bum rifles, but it won't keep me from trying another Portugese Win 70 in the future. The customer service was obviously excellent.

I will say that the newer B&C Ultalight stocks used on the latest EWs are much lighter (~29 oz per Stocky's sampling of a few) and less 2x4ish than the older style B&C used on my SC made EW.

I have an EW in 308 sitting in an Edge stock. I checked it's zero earlier in the week with my handloads of 178 gr ELD-X bullets at 2600 fps. I fired 3 shots at 100 yards under 1/2". Then fired 4 different 3 shot groups at 200 yards. Nothing over 1 1/4" at 200 yards.

The stock used on today's rifles is the same stock that was on mine which is a 1st year production of the EW. The factory stock ain't horrible. I used mine as it left the factory for about 2 years and liked it. But when a used Edge came up in the classifieds here I jumped on it. It reduced weight by 7 oz. and just feels better all around.

I can't say how the imported versions shoot. But if I needed or wanted another rifle I'd not hesitate to buy one

A good friend of mine recently bought a Portuguese made .308 and it is coming along nicely. He has found several factory loads that shoot very well and is just now developing hand loads for it. He couldybe happier with it. I would love to have one.

I have one it’s probably the most accurate rifle in the safe i have 2 fw and a 270 Aw. I am shooting 165 partition hand loads 1/2 at 100 is easy even with me shooting 😜

Thanks for the input guys!

I have one in 30-06 and it shoots under an inch out of the box.

No it's not, the new stocks are different from the stocks on the earlier SC made rifles. It's the "Ultralight" version of the medalist that is used on the new EW, it's lighter and feels obviously different in the hands. All around better as far as I'm concerned, after owning both.

I wish they would make the Ultralight version for Tikkas, but right now they are only offered for 700s and 70s

I’m pretty sure they’ve always used the “Ultralight” version of the medalist for the EW. Maybe they changed it slightly, but even before the guns were made in Portugal, Stocky’s listed the EW stock as the “Ultralight” version.

This has been on their site for years:

https://www.stockysstocks.com/winchester-70-bell-carlson-7775-7776/

The stock on my first year production SC made 300 WSM EW weighs 29.0 ozs exactly.

As to the rifle, it's the most accurate I own. Crazy good.

Maybe it was in my head, or maybe they redesigned the Ultralight stock at some point, but my two 2016 Portuguese EWs with the newer grey speckled stocks felt very different to me than my older pebbly black stocked EW. The wrists were thinner and the front of the forend came to a narrower, taller tip. I wasn't a huge fan of how my first EW's stock fit me, but the second two were pretty nice.

Well I guess I'm full of it, I was so sure that the stocks were different I emailed B&C to see when they changed..... They emailed back (pretty quickly, considering), and said they had not changed the process on their Win Ultralight stocks. Maybe it was the difference in feel between the long action and short action, either way, y'all were right, sorry JMR40.

We all get perceptions stuck in our noggin's that are flat wrong... the older I get the more I know this to be true.

As Mark Twain said:

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Actually, you may be right about the long action vs short action stocks. I ordered a long action UL stock from Stockys a few years ago for a BACO 30-06 and I hated it. They claimed it was the same as the SA stock, but the palm swell was definitely different than on my ‘10 EW .308 stock.

There is definitely a difference in the short action versus the long action stock. This was talked about a few years ago on some of the extreme weather threads, but the short action feels more svelte with a narrower wrist.

Thanks, that is probably where the confusion comes from. I recently picked up a short action 2010 built EW expecting to replace the stock based on how much I hated the previously mentioned long action stock, but once I held the SA EW, I decided to keep the stock as it feels great and is much slimmer than I remember the LA one being.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up, my first EW was a .30-06, whereas the second two were .308s. I feel a bit less crazy now.