Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What to do w/ NH M70 Featherweight?

BobinNH on the Brown stock thread shamed me into pulling this NH Featherweight from storage. In this pic, was the first time it saw the light of day in quite a number of years.

It's 30-06, and was originally intended to be rebored into a 338-06. It was set up the way I wanted for testing, prior to the rebore. I then got side tracked with a 338rcm project, and never looked at this Featherweight again, until now.



Has fixed sights paired with LEU QD mounts and 2.5-8x scope.



Wonderful sight picture. Can swing on something small, like a squirrel or rabbit, busting through the woods. Very fast. Makes getting a sight picture on deer appear easy.



Scope has USMC mil-dot reticle from Premier Reticle, back when they did the custom work for Leupold.

So, here I am now looking at this thing, what to do? No longer interested in 338-06. Even if cut back to 20-inch, too thin to bore 9.3mm. Has 1-pc bottom, Williams extractor, lug and tang bedded, full float, and surpringly stiff for end for wood. Lost my notes, but memory was stock barrel shot around 1-1.5 moa 3-shot groups, if not allowed to heat too fast. That was without load development, so not sure I want to rebarrel. Did not add pillars at the time, as I had intended to restock, so that is a weak link now with the wood. As is, 7-pounds with sights and mounts less scope.

Thinking, if staying 30-06, may go ahead and drill out stock to pour pillars. Maybe see if I can get some sort of modern 150-grainer to shoot. If I like it, could always drop it in a light build stock, though not sure how much that would save over the factory FW.

Open for thoughts and suggestions, as I start muddling through this rifle.

Thanks in advance, for any input.

Later