Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors Restocking a Model 70 Ranger

My Model 70 experience is limited to say the least, so I thought I would ask and try to learn something. I picked up this 1989 270WCF Ranger yesterday for a decent price, and would like to change the stock. I believe this is considered 2 piece bottom metal. What are my options? I'm not against new bottom metal to make the project easier, but am honestly not sure what I should be looking for. A plain black molded stock, or a take off XTR Featherweight stock would suit me fine.

What is the barrel contour? The Ranger that I have is a Feather Weight contour but not sure they all were? Either way eBay is a good place to look for a take off stock just have to know what barrel you have. Also they make spacers to convert a one piece bottom metal stock to two piece

It looks like the same contour as my XTR Featherweights. I'll get a couple pictures after work. The current stock is in pretty good shape, but I thought I'd try to spruce it up, and maybe learn a thing or two.

I had a birch stocked rifle looked pretty bland,. you may want to paint it with a textured paint , come back over it with black webbing paint. mine turned out real well. cheap and easy.

those rangers are a lot of gun for the money, as you well know. I bought one for my grandson a few years back and re-did the stock. I do a lot of woodworking with furniture so have experimented a lot with stains, dyes, finishes, etc. Although birch isn't the most beautiful of woods as far as grain,etc. it is a very hard stable wood: super functional. Unless you just want something different, I would experiment a bit with some stain or dyes. If you don't have a spare piece of birch wood, which most do not, you could try a stain or 2 in the barrel channel to see if you like it prior to doing the entire stock. On my grandsons, the wood is not all that ugly: has some maple looking characteristics. I'd suggest a stain that would darken the wood somewhat: the grandson's turned out somewhat like the color of cherry wood, although I can't remember exactly what I used for stain or dye. Good Luck.

A nice XTR fwt stock is what I'd put on it. There was/is a rifle in the classifieds that is an example of stock swapping on one of these Ranger models. That rifle in the classifieds is a short action, but the same would apply to the long action, such as the one in the OP. Like what was said, ebay can be your friend.

I had a Winchester 70 XTR Ranger in 6.5x55 that was a drop in fit in a 70 FWT stock. The open sights were quite high, so the comb height of the 70 FWT stock was a little low for proper eye alignment.

CDNN has been closing out Winchester 70 stocks for years and might still have a few that will fit this barreled action.

I'll be keeping my eyes open for a clean 80's era fwt stock. It's actually a nice rifle if you don't mind the birch. Thanks for the suggestions.

Yes, try ebay. I have a Ranger in .30-06 that came with the birch stock. I bought a very nice FWT stock on ebay for $75. Ranger dropped right in.

I have a three mid 80s Model 70's that came with very clean wood stocks. The .300 Weatherby has a walnut stock, the .30-06 and .243 are both Rangers with birch stocks. I have been able to find factory synthetic stocks for all three.

This will avoid potential damage to the wooden stocks. . I plan to take them to Wyoming and leave them at my sons house for a hunting battery when I visit.

Two are maked Featherweight and came with SS swivel bases. I plan on floating the barrels and calling it good. a couple of bread bag closures and a little file work and I should be good.

If only there were someone near you that had a pile of Model 70 wood...........And was going to St Cloud this weekend.

Nothing wrong with a ranger 👍I’ve got one that’ll outshoot anything else I got