Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Gents, eyeball this pre-64 7x57

Very interesting and informative thread. Much appreciated. I suppose one could contact Roger Rule (I think he is still with us), otherwise with all the fakes out there, I imagine the only two sure fire ways to be certain is either a provenance letter or one with the original box.

There were a lot of carbines made in 1954 due to the barrel clean up. That is why I mentioned those. I owned one or two and saw many more back in the 80's and 90's. They made standard guns in the less seen calibers as well.

I don't know when they quit cataloging 7M/M as a standard offering; a comment was made about no "post war 7M/M, but they would still have barrels made for International sales.

Yes they marked the undersides with caliber so they knew what it was and date made. That is why those markings are usually not as crisp as the roll stamps, which were applied during the barrel finishing process.

Look at the gun in question. The proof marks are aligned and there is bluing loss as they were proofed after finishing. I have no doubt Win made the gun. Somewhere along the line it was changed a bit, as it has seen some use and is definitely not unfired! The first side view of the buttplate caused me more pause than anything; it almost looked aftermarket. It may well be just fine and original. Then the MC stock and 22G rear sight are mismatched but perhaps the guy liked 22-G over the Marbles 69 and changed it out.

Every 7 M/M I ever saw brought north of $5,000.00 or was at least listed that high. I don't know what the current bid is but it is a valuable gun and if not 100% right it wouldn't be hard to make it right.

ETA: It all could be attributed to camera angles, lighting, plus dig-cams showing what the eye doesn't see. The big fib is the unfired tale.

Over 7k with 6 hrs left.

Nyrifleman: Yikes - someone is going to have a $7,000.00+ "project" to get that Model 70 back to "righteousness" - that should take only another few hundred dollars though.
The current price on this not quite original Rifle makes me sad that I didn't pursue more of the "rare" calibers with serious vigor (money!) back when they were in the $1,200.00 to $1,500.00 range!
Long live the Riflemans Rifle.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

$7,276 winning bid.

I think Jack O'Connor had Winchester make him a 7x57 sometime in the fifties. If I remember right, he said it was their last remaining 7x57 barrel.

That's correct StGeorger. JOC obtained that M70 in 7x57 in 1955 from his friends at Winchester. He cites this in his "Forty Years With the Little 7mm" article and I believe I've read it elsewhere. He was told they had exactly one (1) 7x57 barrel left so they assembled the rifle for him. He then sent that rifle off to Al Biesen who "turned down the barrel, shortened it to 22", put a release button for the hinged floorplate in the trigger guard, checkered the bolt knob, made a stock of good French walnut, mounted a Weaver K4 scope on a two-piece Redfield mount."

Do pictures of the JOC rifle exist?