Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles M70 Coyote, keep playing or sell?

I have a .223 Rem. in a model 70 Coyote with a laminated stock. I cannot tell you how many times I went around the tree in trying to get the damn thing to shoot. I finally sent it off to PAC-NOR and had a real barrel screwed into it. It shoots well now�CP.

Unfortunately, that seems to be the only solution with the Coyote models.. I honestly cannot remember hearing about one of those that really did well. It should.. You had, what, about $600 in the rifle, plus now another $450 in a rebarrel = over a thousand spent in order to get the accuracy that should have been there to begin with.. Winchester really screwed the pooch when they put that rifle together with barrels not much truer than water pipes...

If a guy could pick one of those up for cheap-cheap bux (from an angry owner ?? )and give the original barrel the heave-ho; install a GOOD barrel of appropriate contour - one could have an excellent varmint rig and be into it for around $700 or so..

Yikes!! I really had the hots for one of those and ahve had my eye open for a while. Sorry to hear of your problems with the rifle, but glad I read this thread!

Shoot, why not try the shims, won't cost nothin but the price of a few groups. My 35 Whelen couldn't get better than 2.5" groups until I started fooling with the bedding. It ended up being an honest under an inch rifle. Send a few groups downrange with pressure on the barrel and sell itif you aint happy. My .02

Normally I would agree with you on trying forend pressure, but there have been a LOT of neg. comments on this thread..

Bob,

You can see .005 and greater RO if you roll them on a mirror(maybe even .004), but it doesn't help finding the good stuff(<.003)

Well, mine may not be perfect... But the .300 WSM shoots 1.5" groups at 300 yards with my hunting handloads. I'll take that from a factory barreled rifle. Mine is as built by Winchester, except the previous owner swapped in a Jewell trigger.

FWIW, Guy

I have a Mod 70 Coyote in 223. I only somewhat tested it out once & it gave an honest 1.75" 5 shot group at 100yrds with surplus FMJ loads. I'll have to test it more next time I have it out. I did a quick set-up with it last spring for a trip to dogtown & a bunch of p-dogs didn't seem to like it much. I plan to keep it & maybe someday rebarrel if required.

Edit; The 1.75 was just after I got the rifle, 5 yrs or so ago. Last summer it was handloaded 50grn V-Maxes for dogtown. The trip came on quick & I didn't do any precise accuracy testing that I could report on. I also asked the guide to bring us to his 'novice field' since it was our 1st time. Most of the shots were 75-225yrds, early June, pups a plenty. With time for barrel cooling we limited the longer shots.

Nearly 2 inches at 100 yards?? (head-shake)

You better hope them prairie dogs you find are the size of raccoons..

Both my main PD rigs give me .75 or less groups @100 yds.., and I've not really tried to tweak the loads much.. If I did have the time/energy to do that, I'm betting I can squeak 'em into .5