Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Using your collectible rifles

What are your opinions on using your old guns. I hunt deer with my 300 H&H model 70, or 94 30-30 once in a while. But I have aspirations to hunt on Kodiak for a bear and also Hunt for Moose sometime in Alaska or Canada. I have a pre 64 magnum action that we have rebarreled to 375 but I’m getting the urge to just buy a decent pre-64 375 and hunt it. If not for nostalgia but because I like the rifles so much. Is it crazy to think about talking a blued, wood stocked rifle to wet rainy environments? What says the crowd?

I'd probably use it as is, or if I was worried about a vintage stock getting messed up, drop that M-70 in an Echols Legend and save the OEM stock. I'd coat the metal very well to prevent rust and be careful with it.

Those guns were built to be used.

DF

I use all mine, my 50's fwt.270 is beat to heck, but still shoots well and makes the deer woods every year.

I hunt mine as well, although to be honest on days where the weather report doesn't include rain.

I would probably baby them more if I had a son to hand them down to.

I wouldn't use my high dollar rifles on a rough hunt or when the weather is bad. However, I get them out when its just an easy walk to the stand and the sun is shining.
Phil

Used 80-95% M-21s, 42s, and M-12s - field and range - over decades. Don't take the 98%+ guns to the field, tho.

My '06 M-54 goes out, too. But mostly use stainless/synthetic/laminate stuff.

Would use the leverguns out back but am just about unarmed with open irons at age 65.

Buy it, hunt it, and take good care of it.

Sell the re-barrel.

Missplacedinnebraska: I have Hunted SE Alaska on four different Hunts and been to Kodiak Island twice for outdoor adventures.
I made the mistake of taking a pre-64 Model 70 in 30/06 on my second Mt Goat Hunt to SE Alaska, the conditions there were so horrible and wet with horizontal rain and sleet that my Rifle suffered immensely from that 10 day misery fest type venture. I mean you could just as well have slung that Rifle over a shoulder and stood in a shower for 10 - 12 hours a day!
I would never (and have never!) again take a "quality" Winchester to SE Alaska or Kodiak - take'em if you want but they are very likely gonna suffer.
I was buying a license at a sport shop in Kodiak one year and they had guns for sale - the used gun rack of Rifles looked like a rust bin with nary an unblemished (severely!) stock or pleasant bluing on any Rifle there.
The air is a bit to the salty side there in Kodiak for sure.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

If they are already used with minor wear and tear, a little more isn't likely to change the value, even on an expensive rifle.
I've hunted levers from the 1870s, 80s, and 90s and early 20th cent. It's a great feeling to walk around the woods with a gun that most people don't even recognize or have even heard of the cartridge. Find that 375 Model 70 and go hunt and enjoy every minute you're carrying it and looking at it when you are sitting on that log in the sun.

I've hunted with my pre'64 M/70's every opportunity I get since buying my first one in 1975, don't take them on rough hunts though. Harvested last season's buck & doe with my Featherweight .30-06, used the re-bored Super Grade .35 Whelen the year before.

There is a place for, reason for synthetic/SS rifles.

I’d be hard pressed to put a nice pre-64 thru those conditions.

Just me.

DF

I shoot almost all of my collector rifles. After all they were shot before I owned them. However I would never hunt them. I enjoy them but they are investments. I have plenty of other guns to hunt with that are worth half as much. I may hunt with an older Browning A bolt Medallion this year in 284. Dam thing can really shoot and the 284 round deff has the cool factor going for it.

I only hunt PA.
But each year I find a day or two to take out my Springfield T/D carbine (circa 1880), my Sharps 50-70 conversion carbine(circa 1863, 10th Ill Vol Cav), and my Winchester 1886 Extra Lightweight (circa 1910).
Always sparks a comment from guys that I encounter.

I prefer to hunt with collectible, vintage guns. I am a dinosaur after all. I took two pre 64 Win 70's to Africa, a 30-06 Fwt and 375 H&H. I hunt with the Fwt in PA as well as a nice old Marlin 336 in 30-30. I also use a sporterized Rock Island M1903.

shoot it, take care of it...pass it on.
or baby it, wipe it, oil it, stick it in a closet, pull it out, stare at it, then decades later hope someone will buy it.
pretty much sums it up.


me? i shoot mine.

Most all rave about Phil Shoemakers "Old Ugly" Grizzly rifle, but few want to make one for themself.....

Not near the collectibility of a M70 but I took my Rem. M-30 on my Maine moose hunt in 2016. Took 25 years to draw the tag, had the gun rebored to .35 Whelen. Had to use an old Weaver 3x9 because nothing else I had fit the rings. Satisfying to say the least.

My B/U gun for the hunt was a Savage 99, .358.

I was going to say, thats a sporter 1917, not a pre 64 model 70. Nice rifle man. Those are always my go to's. Not because i have any collectible rifles i keep in the safe, but because i prefer that action over all others...

I don't have any rifles that I don't hunt with. Buying a rifle as a safe queen as an investment is usually a poor investment unless it is very rare

All my guns are old. Well except for one. It’s only about 35 y o.