Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors How much is this rifle worth?

You bet Big B, with todays powders and 200+ grain slicks, the old War Horse can punch damn hard a good ways out.

I agree. I love the 200gr partition in my other 30-06 rifles. They really plow through elk and deer, for that matter. Scotty really makes a good point about heavies in the ol 06 too. Those 212gr loads he started a thread on are eye openers. Recently I lucked into some superformance powder and will probably try that in this new 30-06 and some heavies. Just got off the phone a little while ago and one of my buddies was asking me what bullet I'm going to try in my new rifle and I told him everything I have loaded up for my other 06 rifles. I'm also thinking I'll load some 168gr TTSX up and see how she does. That weight of mono metal should be the catz azz in the ol 06.

Yessir, 200gr NPT main bullet for '06 hunting for me too, heavy slicks with a twisty scope could be fun wringing the old girl out, I can see no flies on the 168 Barnes buzzsaw either.

We will see. I am thinking about loading some of those Barnes bullets and trying out that new rifle of mine. Last day off from work, I better make the best of it.. Damn, just got a notification that the Silver Leupold just sold. I just listed it last night. Didn't last 10 hours on the damn ebay. I priced it fair, considering it had some ring marks. If it would have been in perfect condition, like the last one I sold, I would have priced it higher. So, in all fairness I don't have $300.00 into this rifle. Its more like $330.00... dang it.. Now I'm curious to see how it shoots, but I guess I better get this scope packaged up first.. ha ha..

Nice, congrats on selling the 'glare master glass' ; ]

Guys love those fn things for some reason...

Great question buddy. I saw your question the other day and just now got around to "fine tuning" the bedding on this rifle. I shot it the other day and it did alright, but I know it will shoot better after a couple mods to the bedding. When I got the rifle, it was already glass bedded. Looks like a great job. A couple things I don't like about the bedding are this: 1. The front action hole needs to be opened up. That is one thing I always do to any of my rifles I glass bed. The action screws should not be snug in the stock. This one is and that is generally a "no no". The next thing is the barrel freefloating. On all of my winchester model 70 rifles, I've always gotten the best/most consistent accuracy from a totally freefloating barrel. That means from the front of the recoil lug forward, no contact at all on the barrel. A good/proper freefloat means the stock has no influence on the accuracy of the barrel/rifle. You hear this often here that guys get POI shift when they use a bi-pod, or when they use a front rest. There is a reason for that: Their riflese are not properly freefloated. A good freefloated barrel will shoot to the same place, regardless if you are shooting off of your pack or off a bi-pod. It's as simple as that. Here is how the barrel channel on this rifle looked after I removed some epoxy from the previous owners bedding job:



Sorry I didn't show the epoxy in the barrel channel before i started. I got in a hurry and started sanding before I realized I didn't take a picture. I did take a picture of how the rifle looks with the smaller burris FFII 3-9x40 with ballistic plex reticle on it now:


I think it looks better than the big Zeiss and it feels more nimble in the hands as well... Better balanced..

As of right now, the barrel channel is being sealed with tru-oil:



As always, I post honest results as far as how my rifles shoot. This is before proper freefloating and ammo I have loaded for my other rifles:





I guarantee after the treatment/freefloat I gave it tonight, it will shoot better next time out...

Great score BSA, congrats!

Thanks buddy. I'm pretty happy with it. I don't mind the fine tuning either. I give the previous owner props for doing a nice bedding job. We'll see how she shoots now, after a full freefloat on the barrel. I'll take it out next weekend, with my new 6x45 barrel on my AR15. Hopefully the weather is nicer. It was horrible last weekend. Real wet under the snow, like standing water under the snow. Good thing I was wearing my elk hunting boots, or my feet would have been soak and wet!!!

You do some NICE bedding work. Photos are great, too!
Bob

I wish I could say I did this one. The previous owner did it. Must have used accraglass gel with brown die. I kind of wished he would have bedded the tang as well, but I can always do it later. We'll see how it shoots after freefloating the barrel. Thanks for the compliments though, I think your photo's are pretty damn good too. Better than mine, to be honest..

Alright, just an update on this rifle. I swapped out scopes and am now running my favorite hunting scope (Burris FFII 3-9x40 with ballistic plex reticle). I ended up putting the Zeiss conquest on my new Ruger 10-22. So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I was thinking removing the bedding material under the chamber would help the accuracy on this rifle and I was right. Everything shot more consistently and accurately. I was very happy, even though I'm not getting sub moa groups from this old girl yet, it is sure showing signs of promise. I've had the rifle to the range twice now (I believe). Once before the barrel freeefloat and once after. Here's how she's doing now for comparison:

Now:


Before:


I also tried some 168gr TTSX in this rifle:

I'm thinking mechanically this rifle is great. I'm very happy with how it functions. Its a joy to shoot. It feels great in the hands as well, especially after switching scopes.


I need to load up some more of my pet loads with the 180gr WW powerpoints too. I was a little apprehensive about doing it though, as it takes H4350 and I don't want to burn it up. I looked up at my 4 pounds I have left and thought to myself that works so well in my 6.5 creedmoor. Well, I may have to just use some for the old 06 ammo too. Seeing how that ammo works very well in all of my 30-06 rifles. I'd like to start with some load development as well, but like I said that powder is hard to find... I used H414 in the TTSX loads, which is a first for me. H4350 would probably perform better with that bullet as well.. I have some 165gr TTSX to try too. I also need to try my 200gr partition load in this rifle again too. All of those bullets in the 06 are great candidates for the deer and elk hunting I do around here.