Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Ted Williams Model 53 AKA Winchester Model 70

I picked this up yesterday at the local gunshow and I'm really curious as to when it was made. They were not serialized along with Winchester, so I can't just look up the serial number. I'm always on the lookout for a good action and the price was right on this one.





It has a hardwood stock, pressed checkering, weighs about 7.5lb, 22" barrel, 30-06, hard plastic buttplate(ouch). It is D&T for receiver sights.

Some bling for the grip cap.


It has the ant-bind feature, so that puts it past 1968.



Sears proof? lol.



It has a steel floorplate unit and aluminum triggerguard, which I think was replaced at some time. All the pictures I have seen of these guns they have a weird octagonal design to the bottom metal



Here you can see a variation from the Model 70, The bolt shroud is a different design and a cocking indicator has been added.

[img]http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n212/msj348/DSC00949.jpg[/img]

Safety lever is different style, but still 3-position.

[img]http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n212/msj348/DSC00950.jpg[/img]

It ought to make a good gun to re-stock and/or re-barrel sometime down the road. I'm not really fired up about another '06, but if it shoots good, it may stay that way.

I see M53s every now and then, usually in 30-06, I did see
one in 243 a couple of years ago. I do believe the floorplate
on yours has been replaced. Not sure, but I think most of
these were made in the late 60s early 70s.

the bolt shroud and safety have been cosmeticaly changed. Give me a yell when you want to move that barrel-i am interested,I can even remove it from the receiver for you, Mel Chung

Yep seen it Saturday, picked it up and looked at it since I had not seen many of them. Pretty cool old gun. Other things of interest were a Kimber 7/08 and a KS in 375 H&H. Price wasn't right on those.

I bought a rifle just like this one in the same caliber for my dad about 30 some odd years ago and he used it a couple of times, an OK rifle, but this is not a CRF model 70 so in my opinion a poor choice for a custom rifle build. Use it as is, or re sell at a profit if you can and keep looking for a donor action as this one ain't it.

Not all model 70's are desireable or useful as a donor action and this one fits in to that not so desireable category.

Yep, he knocked off a lot on the price because of the chipped toe of the stock.
Sure was lots of AR stuff at that show.

Safariman, I'll have to disagree with you a bit there. The push feeds sure aren't as valuable as the pre-64 or CRF actions, but they are solid, reliable actions. The ones with the anti-bind feature are slick and, in my experience, feed and eject just fine. Maybe not the action for the basis of a rifle you're going to build for dangerous game, but they are great for my purpose. Which will be a nice custom rifle at moderate cost.

Is this one similar to the 670 Winchester?

I believe the M670 didnt have the 3 position safety.

I believe some of them had the 3 position safety.

Some 670's did, some did not. My 670 carbine has 2-position safety on the side, like a M700.

An old hunting buddy of mine inherited a Model 53 in .270. It was well used, and looked like ass, but it was a tackdriver with 130 gr handloads. Any yes, some of the 670's had the 3-position safeties. Owned one in .243 that did, and another in 30-06 that didn't.

Never seen a model 53. Wonder why they went to the trouble to make it different? Probably cost more to make it different than if they had just left it the same.

the early 670's had a sliding safety,the later 670 had the m70 3 position safety, i have the later version. the 670 that i have cme with a blurry weaver scope, a crooked barrel(collimator reads way off) and is a factory second sold by nationwide sports who is long out of business. my 670 is my main meat gun and works well.