Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors 358 p64 fw on GB

If I was in the business of faking (or reselling) rare firearms, it'd be in my best interest to defend them on websites where they were questioned. To NOT try to legitimize them would be a real wonderment considering all the effort put into producing the fake.

Just sayin.

What I'm not saying is that anyone here is doing that. But, the bigger picture is that if a few people could be convinced that the forgeries are real, then they'd go to work pushing the fakes too, snowballing clear down to the mom and pop buyer. Eventually the lore would be indistinguishable from the fact.

If I was the man that had to know, which thankfully I don't, I'd want to see the Winchester roll stamp for myself. The next best thing would be like Varmintguy, own some early originals to compare to. Better yet, be the original buyer of one.

I'll admit to not being a WInchester guy, but I don't think anyone is going to deny those 5's don't line up with the 3 and 8, for whatever reason. Why is that? Why would WInchester allow that?

Maybe they did allow it, but I'd need to know that for a guar-an-f'n-teed fact, and I'd be careful about what I considered a fact, like I said, if I was the guy that had to know. I'm glad I don't need to know.

LOL, lots of [if's] in all that, does indeed make one wonder, I think the fakers capitalize on that, have often thought about having a FWT in 358, or better still a 7mm Mauser, guess it wont happen until someones Granny leads me down a hallway to an old forgotten dusty closet.

You may have missed it Fireball - I posted it as general interest here with no affiliation. How would seller know to “defend” his item?

pre64win - appreciate your post.

No idea if it was real or not but I think the lighting contributed to the area around the 358 appearing polished. The other photos of the area did not show the same shine.

It may be interesting to see the 5 stamp on a 375 to compare the two for height, etc. Just a thought.

Got a 375 right here, it's square across the top and bottom, zero chicanery.

Guys, I want to be careful to not cast doubt on that particular GunBroker rifle. The detectable differences between a legit rifle and a good fake are too subtle to be seen in photos. In fact, they are often too subtle to be seen with the naked eye in person. The ways we can authenticate a rifle are not things we make public (we really don’t want the counterfeiters to know what we’re looking for), but they are definitely not things you can evaluate in a low resolution photo online.

As for the alignment of the 5 in the 358 stamp, this doesn’t concern me. The caliber stamp was not a part of the master roll stamp engraving, but we’re an added part of the stamp, coming in the form of a stacked set of numbers and letters. Some slight misalignment is not a smoking gun of it being incorrect.

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/792844800

Here is another 358 currently listed. Picture 19 shows another rifle with another “5” not perfectly aligned.

Are any of the other numbers ever misaligned on a pre 64 model 70, or only the 5 on the 358?

Just posted another variation of the 358 WIN. barrel stamp in the Image Gallery. This stamp where all numerals appear to be of the same height is identical to the stamp on the last 358 Featherweight that I had the opportunity to examine at the Allentown show a year or so ago. Just wondering how many variations of this stamp exist and are we to believe they are all correct?

Just another thought, does the mismatched numeral 5 barrel stamp also appear on M88’s chambered for the 358 WIN.?

Here's another thought.

Were the 88's and 70's the same barrels screwed on different receivers and wood?

Honest question.

Here is a some interesting arithmetic, and an observation. From 1935 to 1963, 29 years inclusive, Winchester made 581471 Model 70 rifles.
Ingnoring things like peak production years and the low production WWII years, you get 20051 rifles per year.
Figuring in some holidays, if we go with 50 weeks a year, we get 401 per week.
Assume a 40 hour week, and you get a nice round 10 per hour, or a rifle every 6 minutes.
If they worked double shifts, you still get a rifle every 12 minutes.
In 1953, I believe the peak production year, they made 43905. 50 weeks, 40 hour week, works out to a Model 70 every 164 SECONDS.
Now, maybe some of my assumptions are off, but them's the numbers. Plus, Winchester was building other guns at the time.

Point is, those folks were busy, yet we worry that a digit is a bit off on a barrel stamp. Now, I realize things like that out of line digit and such are all we have at times to spot a fake. But you must admit those numbers add an interesting perspective.

All these Winchester collectors and nobody knows if there are other misaligned numbers? If there aren't, I think you have your answer as to the authenticity of the 358's. Maybe quite a few guys have the fakes and don't want to talk about it.

Winchester made the highest quality bolt action rifles in that time period. Quality and fit and finish was their trademark. The rifleman's rifle. They could get the numbers stamped in a straight line on some of the 358's, but not others?

Come on.

I might feel better if I saw a misaligned 88 in 358.

Course they don't bring 4k...

Are there 243, 308, 270, or 30-06 with misaligned stamp numbers?

Course they don't bring 4k either...

That's the elephant in the room.

These were roll stampted wich is a precess a tool is used , tools wear and break then require replacement so some variations will be present.

I have always found it odd that somewhere someone knows how many of each caliber where made but no records exist? How or where do the numbers come from?

The M70 358 roll stamp machine was used so much it wore out but the 30-06 machine never did?

I wonder is there is any consistency in the straight line 358 serial numbers before the 358 machine wore out and the serial numbers after the machine wore out and then was hastily and poorly repaired by Winchester to stamp the 358 numbers out of line?

Could have happened I suppose...

But, I wouldn't bet my money on a Winchester with crooked serial number

Just me.

I don't understand why this isn't being hashed out. Not enough members on this forum? Not enough rifles to look at for inconsistent numbers?

I have seen multiple Win 88s in 358 go for 2800 all the way up to 3350! I have been wanting one for quite some time but they are going for crazy money. I know they only made like 2000 model 70s in 358.( But a bunch were sent back) Can anyone guess how many 88s were made in 358?