Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Safety on Winchester 70 will not engage

I intended to mess with trigger and lighten it some. Only had the rifle about 5 minutes. Tore everything down. I am having trouble getting the safety to engage, meaning with a bolt closed and cocked, I cannot get the saftey into the "on" or "safe" position. I only adjusted the double lock nuts for spring tension and did not knowingly adjust the overtravel screw length.

Any help ???

I'd try adjusting the overtravel screw to allow more overtravel. If the firing pin isn't cocking you can't get the safety on.

I'm a little worried about that "tore everything down" part; there isn't anything you need to take apart to adjust the Winchester 70 trigger. Be that as it may, I think Dave in WV is on the right track when he says to make sure the thing is actually cocking. The end of the cocking piece will stick out noticably from the rear of the bolt shroud, and it will slam forward with a definite "clank" when you pull the trigger--on an empty chamber, of course.

If it is actually cocking and the safety still doesn't work after putting together whatever you tore down, a visit to your local gunsmith is likely in order.

Did it work properly before you tore it down?

DO NOT put much pressure on that safety lever. If you break it you will have to send it back to Winchester for replacement.

You may have to do a little file work on the cocking piece where the safety contacts it to cam it back. I've had to do this on a few Model 70's that I've owned and been in contact with. Not hard to do, but take a bit at a time. If you take too much material off it won't work. Then you'll need another cocking piece..

As far as tearing everything apart, I intended to adjust a trigger and glass bed the rifle, so I was removing as much as I could.

I'd only had the rifle about 2 hours. If I recall, I thumbed the safety forward once. Seemed to make my candy assed thumb hurt from the pressure required to engage it. Took it out of the box at home, fondled it again for a few minutes, shot a few mounts on the wall to make sure it pointed nicely. Tried safety again. I think I had to bring the rifle off the shoulder and engage safety with other hand. Torn rifle down to find source of safety problem and chickened out 1/2 there.

I realize there is a system to taking the bolt shroud off, and if you magane to do it opposite of the directions on a dropped firing pin, good luck getting it back off. Found out the hard way.

So, safetly does not work at all, and I've put quite a bit of pressure on it, short of using tools to engage it. No dice.

Been shooting it w/o a safety at the range, and it may just leave for an evening of bear hunting today. I'll just not put anything in the pipe unless I see bear.

Can some one tell me how to break it down to get to the probably burr impeding my safety ??

I think I will have big ones just getting th ebolt shroud off, as I cannot get the safety into the middle position to facilitate and easy removal >>

Can ya just take it back to the store? Otherwise I think you have to send it in for warranty service. Sounds like QC missed something.

Jesse Jaynes,
I know this one. You can't take the bolt down to fix the safety because you can't put the safety on right?
There are no doubt other ways, but if you grab the rectangular porton of the cocking piece in a padded or soft jawed vise you can pull on the bolt body to move the cocking piece back a little farther. Use your other hand to move the safety to the middle position. If you don't have a vise you can hook the cocking piece on the edge of a work bench and push it back that way.
Once the safety is on, press the little tab on the shroud and simply unscrew the bolt. You will have an assembly made up of the shroud, firing pin, striker spring. cocking piece and one round and one C shaped retainer that hold the spring on. This would be a great time to put on your safety glasses. With the tip of the firing pin pointing up, wrap a cloth around the upper part of the spring. With the cocking piece on the bench, press down on the spring until you get a little slack at the top of the spring. Don't let your head stray over top of the assembly! Take off the C shaped retainer and the round one. Slowly let the spring extend. If you happen to loose your grip during this part you will find out what the safety glasses were for. Now that the spring is off you can loosen the one screw on the shroud, and slide the shroud off the front of the firing pin. I have never had any reason to take the safety lever out of the shroud, so you are firmly on your own there. You can reassemble in reverse order, but it really helps to have three hands.
Model70guy

I know this doesn't fix anything, but you're not the only one experiencing this problem.
I know of two other new model 70s that had this same problem, both owned by friends. On one, the safety would engage, but it was HARD! The other, you could only engage the safety after cycling the action. Once you took it off safe, it wasn't going back on safe until you cycled the bolt.
A trip to Winchester fixed both of these. Prolly not what you wanted to hear, but there it is... Sounds like they may have some QC issues to address.

JJ

Send me a P M and we can discuss your problem. I have just finished a "Brown Precision" custom job (Win M70 action) that they totally messed up. The safety had the same problem when the customer brought it to me. I can send you some tools/fixtures that will help in dissembly of the firing pn, etc. There is a way to modify the safety lever cam to make applying the safety much easier - it involves some CNC machining to make an excentric cam out of Winchesters cylindrical cam. Other than that, there may be some QC problems at the Winchester factory.

By the way, is your action a push feed, CR feed or the new push / controled round feed system?

I've thought of this exact thing and have considered incorporating that into our actions....

We should discuss this a little more in depth. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />