Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Experiences with a winchester model 70 XTR Featherweight

Congratulations! In my opinion, your son has arguably the best factory rifle ever produced. I have run an XTR Featherweight 30-06 for the last 15 years. It has never given any problems at all. It is accurate day in and day out, is easy to carry, very smooth action, and simply easy to use.

Your son should count himself fortunate. Tell him to bring in a deer or hog and start feeding the family.

Congratulations! In my opinion, your son has arguably the best factory rifle ever produced. I have run an XTR Featherweight 30-06 for the last 15 years. It has never given any problems at all. It is accurate day in and day out, is easy to carry, very smooth action, and simply easy to use.

Your son should count himself fortunate. Tell him to bring in a deer or hog and start feeding the family.

Gawd, you guys are really warming the cockles of my heart....I thought I was the only one who REALLY liked some of those push feed M 70s...obviously the Fwt. XTRs....
Ive had a number of them, liked them all, and shot the barrels out of two .223s
I regard it as the slickest action on an American gun and like some of you, as one of the best looking and handling factory rifles available...
Here in MT it is primarily Pre-64 aficianados,so Ive kept my push-feed preference on the Q.T. I feel like I'm coming out of the "push feed closet"!!!
Thanks!
Ingwe

I personnally own a winchester model 94 chambered in 30-30
all my rifles ive had are winchesters
i just never had this featherweight or model 70?
might pick one up for my self in 270

P.S
i also found out the the trigger is at around 2 pounds
so i might get it at 3 for safety
since its my sons

Love my 90's Classic's, but still have 2 push feed FWT's that I will never part with. A very good choice for a young man's first rifle.

i wonder what other ammo works well with the featherweightS?

aNYMORE EXPERIENCES?

Woefully regret getting rid of my XTR in 7-08............... what the hell was I thinking??????

Anyway this is mine since this past Saturday...... Haven't shot it yet, 30-06, 1982DOB, has the Winchester pad........

I have two M70 FWT XTRS, a .257 Roberts and a 7x57. The 7x57 is a tack driver with Winchester factory 145 gr. Power Points and select handloads. The .257 isn't quite that dood with groups running 1.25 to 2.0" so far, but I also admit I just haven't done all that much with that rifle yet.
I also have an XTR, not a FWT in .270 Win. with 24" Barrel and what appears to be a McMillan stock from the factory. It's one of the most accurate rifles I own.
Paul B.

I own 2 older FW XTR rifles; .257 & .243 along with 3 FW Classics .270, .270 WSM & 30-06.

I have had no bad experiences with any but indeed their precision varies between rifles. Nothing terrible though.

I love my 30-06 Classic with 180’s printing sub moa with IMR 4350. It’s the one rifle I don’t tinker with. It’s always ready.

They work just fine

I own several lightweights and a ranger only difference I see is the stock my dad in-law has a featherweight non xtr I see no difference

Have a few - love 'em all... I'm gonna go through Hell when it comes time to sell 'em all and we move out...

I have two push feed featherweights. They are not XTRs bit very nice rifles. The 270 I got first. It wouldn’t shoot so I used mule deers trick of a bread bag plastic under the receiver to float the barrel. Voila , groups 4 shots into an inch or less and as I have said before has never changed it’s point of impact since sighted in in 1993.. the 6.5x55 has been perfect since I bought it.

I had one of these with the same results. Stupid bootlip bastards at ww put a 2.8" short box magazine in the 257 but throated it for a longer oal. Seated to the cannelure 100 grain Hornady SP's were 2.85" seated out to get 1" groups just short of the lands took 2.91". But then the shells were to long to go into the mag . To make it work right would have mandated taking the block out of the mag, modifying the bolt stop, and maybe a follower from a 7x57 model or just shoot piss poor factory ammo. It really pisses me off to buy a new rifle and find out you have to spend time and money to make it work worth a crap.. It went down the road.
Current m77rl has a 3" box and is everything that m70 fwt wasn't....mb

The 7x57 has the same blocked magazine as the .257 Robt. Supposedly, the fix is get a standard magazine box, follower, follower spring and bolt stop and do a switch. Frankly, I haven't seen the need for the 7x57 as accuracy from my rifle is very good. I haven't worked much with the .257 but probably will once it warms up some. I prefer moderately hot days when I do serious load work ups. I'll give seating bullet further out a try.
Paul B.

I've had them in 223 (2), 257 Roberts, 6.5x55 & 7x57. IMO they're a reliable, accurate enough, good looking hunting rifle. Only trouble with any of them was with both 223 stocks, they warped inward on the left side up where the wood starts to get thinner. I've never understood the "problem" with Winchester push feed either. Lots of other bolt action rifles are push feed, Remington 700 for one, they all seem to wok fine just like the Winchester.

Got a .270 XTR featherweight around 1982 was out of the box one of the most accurate rifles I’ve ever owned (factory or custom)…..loves Winchester 785 powder and Speer 130 grain hot-cor boattails. Killed a very big mule deer buck with it when I was going to Trinidad back in the 80s. Brother wanted it and wanted me to add a “mannlicher” stock and cut the barrel😬…. I did it - cut the barrel to 19.75” and added new stock - didn’t expect the accuracy to be there but got pleasantly surprised - it still liked the 785 and Speer bullets!

Picked up a .257 Roberts on here a few years ago and it shoots good but no where near that .270. Never had any problems and couldn’t recommend highly enough - really the only gun I ever needed but of course I’m a bit of a “looney”😄

PennDog

OK now that I've been reading this thread and seeing some of the manufacturing comments being used to ID something, I'm hoping ya'll can answer some of my DA ?'s

In the late 1970's I got a job with a large Dallas based wholesale Spt Goods distributor as an outside sales rep with about 25% of the state of Texas. Schoellkopf had just been bought out by a Chicago based corporate raider who eventually re sold what was left of the 100+ year old Dallas success story.....We had been cut off or heavily restricted from most of the major Spt Goods Corp's credit lines, but the new startup management team at Winchester in St Louis sent us a "sample" of the new M70 FWT's to help get us started. We got 5 cases of 5 rifles in each case in 5 different calibers, 30'06, 270, 308, 257Rbt's & 243. The street reps who wanted to buy one rifle as a sample got them at the wholesale price. I bought a 257Rbt's, and my closest rep buddy, a former Ithaca factory Rep ,bought a 270. I sold the Sweet Jesus out of these guns in my North Texas territory with my Rbt's sample, and eventually shot the rifling out of the barrel many many years later, and sold the gun to pay for a SAKO I had ordered from Finland after I moved to Stoeger.

Couple years ago a dealer I had helped go into business back in the '70's offered me a steal of a deal on a super clean Fwt 7x57, which was NOT part of the initial startup 5 caliber package , as I was allus asking him if he had had any Fwts traded in.

So my ? is ....what year of mfg is my 7x57 with a SR # of G 157xxxx and a red butt pad. It is in nearly exquisite condition, with a folding leaf rear sight my Rbt's did not have and a hooded front sight same thing again. This gun shoots as good as I can shoot with factory ammo, and I tease the wife it'll go in the casket with me ...a common subject at our age's of 77+ that is kinda like gallows humor...but 3 of the 5 long term deer lease partners have already passed and the 4th one, is retired @ a little past 80, but the ex Ithaca Rep told me he is not able to pull a trigger anymore when I offered a spot for an easy hunt next month for Axis.
Ron

FWIW the Corp Raider in Chicago, the LaSalle Street Small Business Investment Trust had also bought around this same time the Milwaukee Braves and sold them to "some guy" in Atlanta, bought Berns Wholesale in Denver, a 3 location Spt Goods distributor in the Pacific N'West, and Ellett Bros in Chapin South Carolina.
Ron