Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Sick Model 70

I just bought a Model 70 Super Shadow in 300 wsm. Appears almost new and hasn't been fired much.
I attempted to shoot it for the first time yesterday. After the first shot with factory ammo the bolt was hard to rotate.
After the second, it was REALLY hard to rotate. Changed ammo and bolt would not close. Cartridge would go into chamber but bolt would not rotate into locked position. Needless to say I quit at that point. Any thoughts?

Just tried to chamber a once fired piece of brass and bolt will not rotate to closed on it either.

Scratches on the brass might equal rough chamber or ramp issue. Scratches or wear marks on bolt might equal action screw or a scope base screw way too long, or the lug surface,s inside chamber are rough. Break down the bolt check cocking peice threads for rust or bad machining , look at threads inside of bolt body itself for same issue.shine a light inside of bolt and see if is clean. Check firing pin spring and retainer. Then again the bolt might be rusted all to chit inside for all ya know if you have never taken it apart. Gawd knows what a previous owner has done or not done. Sounds like something binding inside the bolt itself if their are no scratches on the bolt itself or on the brass. Jmo...... edit.........put safety into intermediate position and press in ramped shaped detent on left side of cocking peice to unscrew and disassemble bolt. If needed do some google-fu on mod 70 bolt disassembly.

New Haven WSM's have been known to have out of spec, egg shaped chambers. Your issue with once fired brass suggests that you have one of those jewels.

That was also my first thought. OP, keep us posted on what the problems is.

Talked to Winchester this morning. Since it is a "G" serial number, they will not service it or even look at it. I was told they quit doing this the first of this year. Amazing....Ruger would want it back and make it right.....and I have 3 other "G" series in the safe...
oh well, off to find a local gun smith.After I take bolt apart and clean it and the chamber real good!

Must be something new. I sent in a "G" series rifle last year to replace the bolt & they also put it in a new stock n/c. They seemed pretty willing to work on it, might wanna call back and talk to someone different.

So today I took bolt apart and cleaned and oiled it. Nothing of note inside except it was DRY.
Really cleaned barrel with emphasis on chamber area....really dirty....so I tried to load it....fired brass not
sized I bought used will not chamber...the 2 emptys from the other day will...
factory loaded rounds will chamber and the bolt can be forced down....will have to shoot it again
to find out what happens now. Will advise...but it will be a few days.
Thanks for help

Roll your once fired brass across a flat surface and see if it wobbles...

Nope, smooth roll

Couple of questions... is all the fired brass outta this gun? Factory or reloads? Reason I ask is I could not get WSM brass sized correctly. Had the ram on the shell holder. Finally noticed slop in shell holder, inserted a .007 shim under case in holder. Was able to get brass to proper shoulder size and my issues went away.

Scott I have a bag of once fired brass from a commercial source. The few I tried to chamber will not . I have 2 pieces of factory
brass from a box that I shot in the rifle. They will chamber. I have several other boxes of factory ammo and they will not chamber.
I have cleaned this sob till I am tired of the smell. It will be off to gunsmith today!
Thanks for the idea.

Gunsmith is probably a good thing. Still sounds like a chamber issue to me.. Keep us posted. Thanks..

I would make that second call to Winchester!

Yeah I did that yesterday and got the same response. Told me to send it to Midwest Gun Works or something like that. When I
asked who was going to pay for that I was told I was....right. So I asked for a supervisor who just happened to be out sick. IF he calls me Monday, we'll get into it. Wish me luck.

Sure sounds like a chamber that is cut out of spec. A go/no guage set should indicate if this chamber is cut properly in short order. In any case, it sounds like a couple thousandth's deeper cut with the finish reamer and a little polishing should take care of it. IMO

Of course, this advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.

Bob

Bob: great minds think alike! Thank you. You and my gunsmith and I are in agreement with this....now all I have to do is convince
Winchester to stand up and be counted!
And if they don't? Well, I work for 2 gun shops, work at 6-8 gun shows a year and know a lot of other dealers who sell at those shows....guess who wouldn't be selling any more Winchesters? As an old boss once said: "It takes a lot of atta boys to make up
for one oh shxx......." this is their oh shxx moment.

Another reason not to buy a new Winchester..... Being made in Portugal, kind of did it for me though...

Like I've been saying: "Sounds like a chamber issue"...

The last years of production at the New Haven Winchester factory are well known for exhibiting very poor finishing and quality control. I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the current Winchester company wanted nothing to do you with your rifle; from what I have seen, the Portugal/Miroku/FN/Winchester company rejects any ties to the past that can't be used for marketing.

Made in 2004