Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Model 70 Lightweight ??

All of the "Lightweights" I've seen were 1980's or 1990's vintage XTR's and were pushfeed. The ones stamped "Carbine" were the same rifle with 20" barrels.

I think FN is offering a current model with a shorter barrel and CRF. Unless mistaken it is called the Compact. Very similar to the current Featherweight but with a 20" barrel. The stock dimensions MAY be reduced as well but I'm not certain.

Have a 243 & 223 now, had another 223 years ago. Featherweight barreled action in a slimmer stock. Mine had really nice figured walnut. 243 sits in a camo McMillan fwt stock.

BDL style bottom metal all 3. Never seen a blind mag lightweight.

It is that exactly. A 'push feed' era gun, highly underrated rifle IMHO.

I have a Model 70 Lightweight in 7X57, and it came with iron sights. Bought it new, I believe from Grice back in the early 90's. It was advertised as having been made for the European market, which is why it may have had the iron sights. In addition, it had the ugliest stock I'd ever seen on a Winchester, so I replaced it with a synthetic one. Nice shooting rifle, I need to take it out more than I do.

Yes, the Winchester/USRA 70 Lightweight barreled actions are duplicates of the 70 Featherweight, except that the Lightweights were also offer in a 20" barrel carbine version in some calibers.

In 1986, Winchester/USRA cataloged a one year run of 70 Lightweight Carbines in 250 Savage, but for some reason, they cut the barrels with the original 1-14" ROT and that limited the length/weight of the bullets that you could use in it. I have two of them, one with open sights that I bought from Mule Deer in 2005 and one without open sights that I bought via the old GUNLIST in 1991. I have installed both in 70 Featherweight stocks and think that they are much more attractive and that they look sort of like a modern version of the Savage 1920.

My 250/3000 carbine there on the right....it shoots the 100gr silvertip factory loads pretty well...

100 grain Winchester/Olin STs .257" bullets are rather short and blunt compared to many other 100 grain .257" bullets, perhaps they were specifically designed that way so that they would work through 1-14" ROT barrels.

Savage changed the standard ROT from 1-14" to 1-10" in 1960 and Remington cut their 250-3000 barrels with a 1-10" ROT in the 1984 700 Classics, so I was surprised that Winchester/USRA chose to cut their 250-3000 70 Lightweight Carbine barrels with a 1-14" ROT.

I shoot, mostly, 75 grain and 87 grain bullets in my 1-14" ROT 250-3000s. At 75 grains, I like the VMax and the original Barnes X. At 87 grains, I like the Speer TNT and HotCore.

BTW, you 70 LWTC has some nice figure in it, but if was mine, I'd still swap it into a 70 FWT stock 'cause I like the look of their schnabled forearm tips. Winchester got the schnabled forearm look "right" when they designed the 70 FWT stocks, while, in stark contrast, Remington's plus-size schnabled forearm design for the Remington Seven was an epic fail.