Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Is this a super grade or am I crazy?

I ran across something interesting on gun broker. This looks like a pre 64 supergrade in 300WM. Maybe someone can help. Thanks

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=437495599

Since the .300 Winchester was not introduced until 1963 this gun has a lot of problems...Additionally, neither stock nor sightless barrel is a Winchester factory product. Rifle is definitely not a factory gun...

Humped up collection of parts for sure.

The stock does indeed appear to be a Super Grade item. You can just make out the typical factory SG cheekpiece on the left side (the crappy photos don't help). It also has a SG floorplate. The checkering pattern appears to be SG, as well.

I wonder if the rifle is marked ".300 Mag", and the seller (a pawn shop) just thinks it's a .300WM.

Even .300 magnums didn't have recoil pads...

If I had a nickle for every pre-64 M70 factory stock I've seen with an old Pachmayr pad on it, I could buy a Gopher Special.

They weren't put there by Winchester....

That's right. Makes them factory stocks with aftermarket pads - like the one in the auction.

I think you hit the nail on the head about the caliber. In picture number 4 you can look closely at the front scope mount and see the receiver cut common only to the 300 H&H and 375 H&H calibers. This photo also reveals a hole in the left side of the receiver most common with side mounted scope bases in its past. As to the sightless barrel not of Winchester origin, Winchester DID produce sightless standard weight barrels on special order. However this is not one of those as you can see the rear sight blank installed into the dovetail. Sightless barrels did have the rear sight boss but did not have the dovetail cut. As for the front sight, the ramp was integral with the barrel in 1949 so the barrel had to either be cut off behind the front sight ramp or the barrel had to be turned on a lathe to have front sight removed. The factory barrel should be 26" long so it would be easy to determine which course of action was taken. What looked like a clear case of a parts rifle, now APPEARS to be an original supergrade with recoil pad added, barrel either shortened or turned down, and left side of receiver drilled and tapped. What terrible photos for such an expensive rifle.

Did Winchester even catalog the 300 Win Mag in SG? Ever?

That rifle is worth no where near $2900 bucks.

I think we have a winner with stuvxxyz it appears to be a 300H&H with the barrel cut down. From picture #4 it appears like it had a side mount on it. It's a shame the stock has a pad on it or the stock would be worth a goodly amount. The way it is now the actions had extra holes drilled in it, the barrels been cut down and the stock has a pad added so it isn't worth much. It would make for a really nice using gun? An H&H action would normally be worth quite a but but not with extra holes in it. I wonder what one could get for the stock and floorplate if they put a nice reproduction red pad on it? I bet $5-600 for just the stock and floorplate, but the rest of the gun isn't worth much more than that.

It looks to me like low wood stock. Maybe just the picture angle.

Yes it is a low comb stock as the monte carlo stocks were not available till mid 1951 and wasn't cataloged till 1952.

As it is listed and a 300 Win Mag the possibility is the barrel was set back .250 and rechambered. Front sight may have been turned off at that point. Just sayin.

Unless it was a Special Order, probably not. Super Grades were discontinued in 1960 and the 300 Win. Mag was introduced in 1963....this wouldn't be the case with the rifle in question, because as others have noted it is obviously a put-together gun.

I would call it a cobbled-up POS....

Holy chit. No comment.....

^ +1