Pappy, I have a little different rendition of the story. When FN commenced producing the Model 70 in South Carolina, the barreled actions were produced in house by FN and the other components for the rifle were sourced through a number of domestic vendors. In short order, FN had issues with some of the outside vendors' quality and deliver schedules. In turn, they stared sourcing components from their international partners to offset the issues they were having with some of the domestic suppliers. Moreover, production of the Model 70 in the South Carolina plant was causing production conflicts with FN's primary business at that location of manufacturing military and police firearms. So, the move to Portugal was driven by a variety of issues.
I asked Winchester if the barreled action for the Portuguese Model 70 would always be produced in South Carolina and they told me "not necessarily". Everybody can draw their own conclusions from that comment. CP.
