I was under the impression it was the action. Was this only Winchester? Have they made the crf action since? Do other manufacturers make a crf or is everything push feed? How do you tell them apart?
Pre-64 refers only to Winchester. A lot of what you read is this is when the bean counters got involved and ruined the rifleman's rifle. The pre64 had the famous Mauser style claw extractor. The push feed the extractor is on the bolt face. On the pre64 the claw rides on the outside of the bolt, you can see it in pictures, full length of bolt, like a half inch wide or so.
Early push feeds were said to be pretty poor quality, later ones said to be just as good as Remington 700's (cue the popcorn). In the early 90's (???) Winchester came back out with the mauser type extractor, calling it the Classic.
