Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Educate me on the Winchester Model 70 Featherweight

Have owned a bunch of pre-64's, Classics and Baco featherweights, have only owned one of the new Portugese assembled guns. Was surprised that the action and barrel were much nicer polished and blued than the South Carolina guns. Wood to action fit at least on mine was improved, some of the South Carolina guns weren't so great in that area.

Is the Sporter barrel contour about the same as the contour of a Remington BDL?

Is the Feather Weight contour the approximate equivalent of a M700 Mountain Rifle contour?

By memory....
BDL is a tad thicker??
FWT is a tad thicker than the MR for sure.

Nothing really, just year of mfg. Made 1992-2002. The best mass produced rifles made since 1963, imo. When they went to 7 digits in 2003 is when quality control went down hill.

No experience or experience desired with any Model 70 not made in New Haven CT. Someone at BACO oughta be beat with a sack of D cell batteries for scraping the best hunting trigger ever made.

My only current production M70 is a .270 Extreme Weather (SC made). It shoots almost everything I've Fed it MOA or better, Fed Blue box 130's shoot so well I'm having a hard time justifying reloading for this rifle. Several sub MOA groups at 300 yards with that ammo and my rifle.

I hated Winchester decided the MOA trigger was a better option, the old trigger was about as perfect as you could get for a hunting rifle IMO. However, my rifle with MOA trigger has been great from the time I got it, breaks cleanly and crisply at about 3 lbs. I don't know if the trigger was adjusted previously since I bought it second hand but I've found no reason to mess with it.

I don't know why you don't like McMillan, they usually have a pattern that most can find ergonomically pleasing. But for those who don't like them there is Brown Precision, Manners, MPI, LAW/High Tech/Bansner, Wildcat Composites, and others to choose from as well. I have a 6 digit Stainless Classic FWT that resides in a McMillan Hunter blind magazine with Edge fill that weighs just under 7 lbs 2 oz with optics, it's hard not to like that!

It is hard not to like that. I'm hoping to end up with a finished product just as you have pictured. What caliber is it?

There's a lot of love for the old M70 trigger, "best hunting trigger ever made." I don't doubt your word, but what are you basing your opinion on? Educate me.

The old model 70 trigger is just a good simple almost fool proof design. The open design is less likely to collect debris and they are easy to adjust and tune up. In some ways the Md. 70 trigger is a single stage variation of the Mauser trigger. Some feel that the farther you get away from the original Mauser design the less good it is.

I'm partial to the Classic as they are the only Left Hand models. The Portuguese rifles I looked at were nicely finished and some had better wood. But somehow "The Rifleman's Rifle" not made in the US has less appeal. This even though for a period the New Haven Rifles were poorly assembled while the factory was going through major changes starting around 2000 when they went to two shifts till 2006 when New Haven ceased operations. Here is a brief history: http://www.winchesterguns.com/support/faq/where-are-winchester-firearms-manufactured.html

Symplicity

Reliability

The model 70 classic triggers where made out of cheap mim'ed parts and felt like crap from the factory. If you had a good smith work them over you could get them to be reliable at around three lbs of pull weight but no lower IME. As far as I am concerned they were not that great and I always ran a Jewell on my Classics set to 1lb.
The new MOA trigger when sprung right is an improvement. The guys saying otherwise are mostly speculating in regards to enclosed triggers fouling up in rough conditions. This hasnt been my expierance and I have hunted in pretty nasty conditions for many years.

The new guns from SC or Portugal are night and day better than even the 5 digit classics. I owned a pile of them and just about all of them were projects in a box.
My favorite model 70, a six digit classic required a new extractor, a new follower spring, bedding and a trip to Redneck to get it to feed right and a trigger job. Even then it has tool marks galore. The new ones are essentialy tune the trigger with a spring only and shoot.

I'm not clear Ben, is your main criticism of the model 70 trigger the design or the manufacture? I'm comfortable and familiar with 4-1/2# triggers, so not being able to get one below 3# is a non issue for me.

curious to know why the FN SC rifle QC declined over time? what was up with that???

The design is fine from what I gather. The execution was poor.

^^^ This. ^^^

I have a .308 EW that shoots bug holes with everything and came from the factory with a fantastic trigger with no creep or overtravel that breaks like glass at 3.4 lbs. It shoots 130, 150, 165 and 180 grain bullets accurately whether I load them or some factory does.

My buddy’s Portugal-assembled Featherweight in .270 Win outshoots my EW. Outstanding trigger out of the box.

My next rifle is going to be a new Featherweight Stainless in either.308 or .30-06, which I will rebore or rebarrel to .338 Federal or .338-06.

The next one after that will be a Featherweight Stainless in 6.5 Creedmoor as soon as they introduce it.

I love the new Model 70s, especially the Featherweight. Really well-made, beautiful rifles with nice wood, great metal work and fantastic triggers that are much nicer than the old ones.

To each their own.

I'm staying with the one with 70 years of track record.

You must have got all 6 or 11 or 23 of the rough ones they made from 1936-2006.

He must have piss poor luck. Every classic I've owned has been very good.

I've got two model 70's, and two model 700's. I had a third 700 but sold it. Contrary to the common notion both of the 70s have been more accurate than the 700's. All were good, but the 70s better. All five were rifle I did no more to than screw a scope on to.

Likewise. I feel fortunate to have one but wished I'd jumped on some more sooner in other chamberings and perhaps a stainless one too. Same goes for my LH Ruger 77 MII. Never thought Ruger would drop the M77 in LH since they'd been making it for so long.

.30-06