The mention of the .308 Standard brings back some memories. Back in the late 70s I had begun attending gun shows of which the OGCA quickly became my favorite. I quickly became acquainted with men who were true experts on the pre 64 M70. Two sellers from Michigan were regular sellers and always had rare guns for sale. They were pretty much shunned, however, by my expert friends, but for no apparent reason until one time they show up with four really rare Standards-a pair of .358s and a pair of .308s....story was these guns came from a filling station owner in the Upper Peninsula who had special ordered all four guns then quietly put them away. He had passed away and this pair of dealers bought them from his estate.
Didn't take me long to track down one of my pals to tell him what I found. Asking price was $5,000 for each rifle-a lot of money back in those days and completely outside my financial reach at that time. I asked Randy if he had seen them and he said Yes. Next question was what he thought about them. He told me to stay away from them. No more explanation but that was good enough for me. Came across another friend and Wayne told me essentially the same thing as Randy had.
I finally pried a little more from Wayne as he took things slower at a show than Randy, who cruised the tables as if on roller skates, looking for guns to buy. It was then I heard the story about the fellow from Michigan who was turning out M70 barrels, using original Winchester stamping dies, which could not be told from the original. Seems a certain dealer from New York had even turned up at Randy's shop one day with six 9mm barrels in his trunk that the Michigan guy had sold him which the NY dealer was peddling..
I'm only relating all this to let others know that sometimes it isn't always as it appears when it comes to our beloved 70s.
Interestingly, since I've been on the Internet these past 15 years or so, I've seen none of these rare guns for sale. Somebody, somewhere has these rifles stuck away. Pretty scary and probably one of the reasons George Madis told me, many years ago, he decided against writing a book on the 70 because he did not want to destroy friendships (almost his exact words).
There's a lot of money being made these days on rare 70s and sometimes I'm sorta glad I got out of the game.
