Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles The 670 Winchester Short Rifle Project (Long Post)

Today I decided to see exactly what losing two inches of barrel had cost me in velocity and practical effectiveness. So I gathered up the old BetaMaster, the wife's old Remington Model 78 and the Winchester 670. The 78 is on the left and the 670 is on the right. Both are good examples of 70's-80's budget versions of each company's flagship bolt gun; the 78 is based on the Remington 700 and the 670 on the Winchester Model 70. Both came with wood stocks and iron sights. Over the past 20 years, that old 78 has killed enough deer to load down the pickup they are leaning against.



While they look nearly the same length, the 78 still has a 22" barrel and the 670 was shortened to 20". Some of that is the fact that I leaned the 78 out a little more when I placed them for the photo. The Model 70 action is also a little longer than the 700.

I had a few rounds of Federal 3006A 150 grain softpoint left, so I fired one from each rifle over the chronograph. No, it's not scientific. I don't care. All I wanted was a baseline velocity from each rifle with the same load. Federal says this load starts at 2910 fps.

From the 22" Model 78, it clocked 2883 fps.

From the 20" Model 670, it ran 2804 fps- and I can live with that.

So the next question was what, if anything, did those 79 fps cost me in practical effectiveness? The answer is 'nothing' but of course I had to shoot something anyhow. I filled a 150 oz detergent jug with water, stood it on the logs at the end of my backstop and placed a clean piece of cardboard behind it. I drove 300 yards to the old haywagon parked in the field behind the house, wedged myself & the 670 into the most comfortable sitting position I could manage and squinted through the antuque 4X Bushnell. With my present zero I knew there'd be some drop; I believe the crosshairs were just about the 'ERA' logo when the shot broke. The impact was audible with muffs on and I got to watch the jug come back down in the scope. POI is noted in white letters near the bottom of the jug.



That Federal 150 grain bullet was still doing its business from the short Winchester at 300 yards.



Cardboard behind the jug indicates bullet expansion and even some fragmentation.



I have always considered the 30-06 an easy 350 yard big game cartridge, even with garden-variety bullets of appropriate weight for the task at hand. Today's little exercise reaffirmed that belief and convinced me that a 20" barrel doesn't handicap it one bit.