Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors In Search of a 1942 Model 70

I am looking for a 1942 model 70 action or rifle for a client. We're not looking for a collector, as he plans to hunt with it and we'll be doing some blueprinting and customizing before he gets it. If any of you have an action or a rifle laying around with a serial number between 50,754 and 58,206, let me know. We're ready to buy!

Thanks,

Justin

Must be the year he or his dad was born

Yep! Actually I think he is doing a cool thing. He was born in 1942, which is why we are seeking this particular year. To put it bluntly, he is getting ready to leave his estate to his children and wants two identical 1942 rifles to leave to his two sons. He already has one, and he wants to recreate a second one exactly like it to leave to his two "boys". There is also a 3rd rifle - a .30-06 pre-64 Super Grade Featherweight. This one he is leaving to his (now 19 year old) grandson. Lucky kid!

Oh Lord, please, Please, PLEASE, I truly hope that the grandson appreciates it!!!
And Pre64Win, I hope you find that 1942!

I just ran across a 1941 version... but I ain't selling

Thanks! The search continues. And regarding the SG Fwt... I will coach him a bit on this. I'm not sure the owner truly understands what a special rifle he has!

If that grandson is like most 19 year old kids, he would rather have a new Nintendo console. Too bad that grampa can't put that M70 Super Grade into a trust of some kind because as soon as grandpa is gone, the rifle might be too. Just look at the interest level of the millennials at the last gun show that you went to.

So true. I bought my nephew a pre-64 .30-06 and after a month or two learned he was a bit disappointed with it and was wishing it had been an "Ultimate Shadow" model 70 instead. I happily downgraded him from from his $800 pre-64 to a $300 Ultimate Shadow. It was the same chambering, but it wasn't half the rifle. He still struggles to get any accuracy out of that modern button-rifled Winchester barrel on the Ultimate Shadow rifle. Someday he'll regret not keeping that nice hand-lapped pre-64!

Can I ever relate to that one. Back as a youth I'd go over to my elderly neighbor Frank's house and clean his guns for him. Oh not that he had shot any of them, it was just that he liked having them newly cleaned and polished and he enjoyed telling me hunting stories and I enjoyed listening. When I had scraped together about $125.00 in apple picking and chore money I told Frank that I wanted to buy a new M70 in .30-06. Frank had a mint condition pre-war M70 .30-06 that he offered to me for that same $125.00, but no, I had been reading the Guns & Ammo drivel that Elmer Keith was spewing back in those days that the post-64 M70's were better than the pre-64's. I bought that post-64 instead of Frank's rifle and sure enough, what I got was a post all right that handled like a post too. Too late smart.

My son recently purchased a rifle in the year I was born, Model 70 from 1960.

I found it for me, but he was wanting his first deer rifle sooooo...

Elmer was writing that the Post '64 M70's were better than the Pre '64's?!?! I know they may be better than many give them credit for, but seriously Elmer . . .
I might try to make a case for the Classics, but even then I would be on shaky ground.

Yeah, I never forgave Elmer for that one and even if I hadn't bought Frank's rifle, it was 1964-1965 and there were still new pre-64's around. I've seen that then new M70 1965 model described as the rifle equivalent of a gussied up floozy. Ultra shiny varnished stock, slick pressed checkering, push feed action and a stock design that chopped me in the cheek bone and unfocused my eyeballs at every shot. It was a valuable lesson about not believing everything that I read, but Elmer dropped off his pedestal pretty quickly in my estimation.

So much like my own story as a teen. And now I see it repeated in son and my nephew. Like us, they will someday learn what they have done

I have a standard action in the serial number you are interested in and am willing to sell. PM me if you have any interest.

Terry