Home Forums Hunting & Shooting The Lefty Forum Winchester 70 LH thoughts please

I have a model 70 lh in 7mm stw and I am having a hard time getting it to shoot. To the piont a new barrel is a thought, bore looks good but shoots everything into a 4 inch group at 100 everything I have tried lands there and a new scope does the same. Details I have bedded the rifle the trigger has a little travel, the magazine is not bound, the barrel is free floated. I have never seen anything like it? Hoping for ideas and sugestions to get the rifle to shoot.
What load do you guys that have a left hand stw find works for you?

Recrowning maybe?

Try thin pieces of inner tube right above the front sling swivel. Just enough to fill the free float right there. Don't ask me why but on my Sako a friend that holds several bench shooting records suggested it and it worked. It took two small pieces of inner tube for mine. I just stretched them slid them in place and all was good. If it doesn't work just take them out.

Make sure the action screws are torqued properly?

SIL shoots a 7STW. His buddy hand loads his with 150gr Hornady SST's and near max charge of one of the slow burning Hodgdon powders. IIRC, either H50BMG, or H1000.

If you have already done all of the normal stuff: bed the action, float the barrel, adjust the trigger, confirm mag box is not doing the rocking horse thing, as noted above, trying a little up pressure might be worth a go. Personally, if you are shooting factory ammo for an STW, it won't take much experimenting before you would be money ahead to just replace the barrel. I have had custom barrels from Douglas, Lilja and Krieger. They have all been easy to find MOA factory loads, and sub MOA hand loads.

Worse comes to worse, if you decide to part with the rifle, shoot me a pm...

Have gone threw the rifle, bed free float , trigger work , the crown looks Okay but it is a thought and would only take a few minutes to throw her in the lathe and give it an 11 degree target crown. I thought maybe it just didnt like the 162 eld-x but factory offerings of 140 and 150 shoot into the same pattern . I have run H1000, H4831, Retumbo tried cci and federal primers the whole thing is perplexing to me. I have put her back in the safe and will give some more thought and time next spring. I will have to try the inner tube trick as well. If all else fails the rifle will get a new shillen tube .

Try 7828 or R 25

Have had two experiences with "Classic" Winchesters that I could not get to shoot respectfully after trying everything I could think of, both rifle and loading wise.

Rifle 1 was / is a LH 338 WM.
Finely "noticed" that an extremely tight patch got tighter directly under the rear sight. A new barrel (Lilia) created a good shooting rifle.

Rifle 2 was a RH 300 ultra mag.
Could not find a smoking gun for it not being able to group less than 2" (Chamber was a little big around the shoulder and neck).
Bedding, re-crowning, trigger work, too much loading recipes and multi cussing never changed the results!
Re-barreling created a great shooting rifle.

square the action and bed it. worked for me.

There was a period at New Haven when they started working double shifts and the break in period turned out some not so good rifles. I had a Classic M70 375 that the barrel was screwed on so crooked I ran out of scope adjustments before I could get on paper at 25 yards. The iron sights worked fine. Lee Haskins in the Custom shop re-barelled it with one of the custom barrels. It is one of my most accurate stock factory rifles now.

I think if the receiver threads were chased and new crown it might settle in. I would face of the action and bolt too but at some point a new barrel may be the better option. If you have access to a Starrett gauge I would check the bore too. It would make a dandy 300 H&H if you wanted to go classic.

It would make a nice 300 H&H . The problem with truing the face of the receiver is the extractor cut timing.

There is that...

Could always sell it, and change to something else. Market should be decent