Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Pre war Model 70 Super Grade question ?

I copied the pics, then enlarged them and monkied around with the contrast, etc. There's no border that I can see.

Rule has a pic of an 'unusual' M70 with single border checkering on p.151.

Jack, I don't have the Rule book (a hole in my library I should correct), but I do know a thing or two about checkering stocks. Pre-64 M70's, including the SG, have what is commonly known as bordered checkering. The checkering on this particular stock does not have that border. If you (or Rule) want to term it as "single border" checkering, that's fine with me. However, I would consider that "borderless", since the checkering goes right up to the outside edge (the "border") of the pattern.

The pictures in the OP show checkering that has an edge line but not the, what I have always thought of as normal for Winchesters, "beaded" border. The beaded boarder consists of the edge line, a slight radius(bead), than another line. It was used for covering up any runovers of the checkering. An edge line (used in borderless checkering) is one line at the edge of the pattern, giving the diamonds a place to end on the curved lines of the pattern, and on the points or V's of the pattern, is simply one of the lines of checkering.

It looks to have an unusual "for Winchester" single border. It also looks to have been refinished at some point, wood is too light in color and dark dents are too smooth. I have studied rule pretty good and have held a number of old 70's and my $ is on refinish.

Any time you see a gun with such pronounced dark dents and the checkering is still clean and without "dirt" it's a red flag!. Those dark spots on the stocks are previous dents. ... You can see the wood grain thru the checkering and that is not correct for that stock, a stock of that age and use would have black dirty checkering with no visible sign of wood grain.

That gun stock has been stripped, cleaned and refinished. I am skepticle of any "rare" 70 and would say that someone may have tried to make a regular stock into a super grade. I'd like to see a better photo of the swivel inletting, the ebony forend and the grip cap. The photo of the magazine plate with "super grade" on it was not shown.

Sorry if I'm a bit of a skeptic but I've seen too much!

I will take a few more pictures tomorrow in the daylight. I'm sure as hell not trying to pass this off as some one of a kind treasure, and I'm not attempting to sell it, I just bought the damn thing.
I have a few standard pre wars, found this one, knowing the checkering pattern was different than any pictures I had seen of other SG's, but the price was right, and I considered it a legit SG.
I took a toothbrush to the checkering and waxed the stock to clean it up a bit. It's just a classy old hunting rifle, and I'm fond of pre wars.
I spent some time on the phone this morning with a gentleman at the Cody Firearms Museum Records Office. The serial number on the receiver shows it as a 39' production, but the date on the bottom of the barrel is 38', he stated that was not unusual. He also said the checkering on the grip was Class 4 option, but the fore-end checkering was a standard(not SG) pattern.
I am definitely not a M70 expert, I enjoy hunting with them, but I have learned a lot from the comments and feedback.
Thanks.

Converting a standard M70 stock to an SG occurred to me, as well. But that doesn't explain the cheekpiece, does it?

Nice old mod 70, enjoy ! The gun is not a collector piece so don't let the stock bother, my money is on factory. Tell us how she shoots! very best

winchesterpoor...thanks!

Still think it's the Real Deal.

I agree. Too much there to fake. Special order would be my guess.

You can also see why Winchester typically put a "beaded" (thanks Quack) border around their checkering. Lots of overruns.

I had a chance to play with this 06' for a while, ran some factory Barnes VOR-TS 150's through it. It puts 3 a little under an inch, which I kind of expected. Carried it during the California coastal "A" zone deer season, which ended yesterday. I'm going back to my 7x57, so I'll take a few more pictures and list it for sale in the classified section tomorrow.

Its unusual but looks correct in all other ways. It also appears to match the timeline of the rest of the gun. Meaning it's not new and the use patterns look like they match. I am always wary of stocks that look new on rifles that don't.
If the guy had it since '49, he would know.

Here is a very nice post-war .300 H&H with a similar custom pattern through the grip...

http://www.icollector.com/Magnifice...Bolt-Action-Rifle-in-300-H-H-M_i14555443

WOW! $24,100 for that! It's one gorgous rifle in a very desirable caliber and special order barrel. It's a shame it's never been hunted though.

Somebody has simply recut the edges of the pattern to remove the border. I can even spot some over-runs where they slipped. Not a hard thing to do at all and you can almost bet some previous owner was reading J O'C and saw the borderless checkering he liked to have on his rifles and it all started there. But, I have never seen another Super Grade with the abbreviated top line on the pattern at the grip. Not sure what gives with that.