A controversy brewing from my comment concerning bolt numbering. My comments relate to personal experience with interest in Model 70 rifles since the eighties. A Life Member of NRA since 1958 (now Benefactor Member for years). Sustained primary interests since mid-fifties teenager, bolt rifles.
Never tried to annotate my Winchester library to account for the number of Model 70ies I’ve examined. Likely not amounting to “hundreds”. I examine those amounting to some prospective interest in acquiring. I don’t claim ‘expertise’. I do claim ‘experience’ in context of that which has served me well over some happy decades. I do claim ownership of my hypothesis shared above which has worked well for me in understanding the Model 70 and provided a good working formula for my acquisitions in context of “hard to argue with success!”
I don’t know that the ‘sampling’ examined in forming my hypothesis in any manner empirically (statistically) balanced. I do know that it has brought me some fine, bolt-unserialed, rifles! I do know that most have been subjected to a set of Foster headspace gauges under my tenure. Such as routine with most of my susceptible rifles. I do know that most of mine are well within tolerance and such annotated on my XL spreadsheet detailing my guns. That matter and the equally important matter, as noted in a post above, of the right ‘nuanced’ bolt; correctly matching its host rifle characteristics.
One of the no longer whispered confidences concerning the Model 70, particularly within sub-era; parts fungibility. Our Seventy Models so well-crafted over the decades, in many instances, replacement parts with ‘drop-in’ functionality. Thus heralded and coveted “all original” specimen, may indeed possess genetically mixed heritage. Having exercised collector ‘due diligence’, far more likely to achieve positive results than relying on bolt serialization which, if present, might have been ‘authored’ by any scallywag at any point of time! ‘Ultra-clear’ renditions, particularly suspect!
So now, excuse please as I climb down off my soapbox and rack out; late evening even having reached SoCal.
Here unrepented views that have worked well for me and…
My take
