Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Not impressed with the new Model 70's

Call Lee24 and have him explain to you the quantum physics and extraterrestrial engineering that went into the new M70.

Depends on what year the pre-64 was built. My late model, 1963, had horrific, almost sickening machining work as if a kid had it on a grinder and the stock was worse. The stock cracked as many featherweights did but it shot 1/2" at 200 yds. Find a pre-52 and you are talking quality. I love em and want another, any caliber.

Push feeds and leopard thingies... you're perilously close to defining the essence of Ingwe.

lmao....

That's why these are still around and selling for ten times what they cost new!! All pre/64's....

A fool and his money............

Yea, and I have retired at 55.....You got to be somewhere tomorrow?

No scars on those boys...

I hope the new S.C. made rifles are good ones. Just bought one in .270 WSM. If it shoots as good as it looks I will be in great shape.

Nope but I've done something wrong if I'm working at 55.

Agreed. I don't hear many complaints about pre 64's other than late 50's and later. A good late 40's early 50's gun is a thing of beauty IMO. Like everything they are not perfect but pretty close. Complaints about pre 64's I consider douchebaggery.

I sold a pre-war 270, please send help.

Amen....

I never was impressed with Model 70's.

She sure has a nice pair of "floaties"

As Toby Keith would say, "Ea-ea-easy now."

Agree about Raquel, not sure about the other...

When you pick up a pre-64 it feels as though it has a life of its own, each one is different. The new ones are nice, but they just feel like lifeless cookie cutter rifles to me.

SU not directed at you,just general response

I don't disagree with this.. ...posted many times about how good the new SC M70's have been after shooting a good deal with 4 of them,my only complaint being failure to retain the old trigger;the new one feels very nice,better out of the box than the pre 64's and Classics......but just prefer the open trigger on a hunting rifle.

As to the "prejudice", yeah, I'm prejudiced but it didn't come overnight...it only came after years of using other stuff as well;stuff that worked "well enough",at the range....and out hunting.Well before pre 64's became collection icons....had my first pre 64 in the late 60's,4-5 years after they were discontinued.I watched the battles rage...I used them extensively before there was a book.....

We're products of our experiences...and surroundings.The HP shooters at our club would talk of dropped scores due to jams during rapid fire with other more "modern" designs.....other rifles would not shoot too well.....in Northern Maine I watched two rifles of another make,one evening,after a snowstorm,freeze solid,refuse to work....and I mean neither one would fire.Mine,a pre war M70, similarly frozen,still functioned.

I watched tiny xtractors break,leave fired cases in the chamber;pull through the rims of cases....one guy getting ready for a Cape Buffalo with a post 64 M70 458 discovered his rifle extracted half the time.........enclosed trigger housings gathered dirt,grime, oil, moisture....and just quit.......Sliding safeties that would not go off on a vaunted Euro design caused a buddy to lose a deer........bolt handles that lifted with safeties engaged,rifle failed to fire.....bolt handle popped off another one November day in NH......bolts that overrode cartridges in the magazine, failing to feed,porpoising followers, etc etc....some of this sort of stuff happened to me, more so to others as I witnessed.I watched....

I could go on....and on....and on.A pattern emerged,I could not ignore...the most generally goof proof,trouble free,reliable production rifles I saw and used tended to be pre 64's and certain Mausers.

Which is why I can look past criticims like the stocks(well hell just replace the damn thigs;they were made when people used irons and tiny low mounted scopes!);differential blueing on the receiver(along with the wavy lines, done that way to cut glare off the receiver for iron sight shooters);crooked receivers from heat treat? Yup! and the bolts, too.....they straightened them.(If this is such a problem how come they shoot so well?). The receivers are also very tough.

Crude checkering?Sure!They were not designed to be refined things of beauty.If you want refinement and beauty,you gave it to Al Biesen, Tom Shelhammer,or Dale Goens,just like today..

They were designed to be "used",as hunting rifles.The design endures,and even today,they are copied in many other designs,Ruger and Kimber coming to mind.Through all the handicaps of old machinery,primitive methods of manufacture,a great rifle emerged,that gave reliable service when others would quit......Contrary to popular belief, not all rifles work exactly as they are supposed to as they come from the factory

I took delivery of a new custom recently;I had asked the maker...."what action?" he said for a magnum case,we will both be happier if you give me a M70 Classic....I did,and it turned out great.The old pre 64 is tougher to square up.

Is it the best? I dunno....and I really don't think anyone can really say what is "best"....and really don't care.....but I am not going to judge it by silly standards of cosmetics,nit-picking about final finish,or comparing its' manufacturing methods to those of today,(whichis hardly reasonable). I will judge it by how it "works", in the field,where I hunt. In that regard, it plays second fiddle to nothing I am aware of..

The original Model 70 was introduced in the 1930's. It's main competition was the Remington Model 30S and the Savage 40/45 Super Sporter.......hardly guns to make a hunter's knees go weak looking at them or using them. Most of the European rifles based on the Mauser actions (which are superior in every way to the Model 70) were rare and high priced.

After WWII there were quite a few Mausers that came into the country, but most were military rifles that were "sporterized" by home "gunsmiths" (as were quite a few Springfield 1903's). True custom rifles built on these actions were much better than the Model 70....but once again, cost prohibative for the "average" shooter. European rifles did become a bit more common, but still not plentiful and still a bit expensive.

THAT's when the pre-64 Model 70 made it's reputation. It was the best rifle available at a decent price for more than 25 years. Even with it's shortcomings as to fit, finish and metalwork......it had no competition.

By the 1960's the "worm had turned" as they say. Remington introduced the 721/722....followed shortly by the great Model 700 and savage introduced the ugly, but cheap and effective Model 110. Browning and Husqvarna offered Mauser action rifles that were as inexpensive and better made than anything in the USA.

Still, Winchester's Model 70....with a near 30 year running start.....could have held it's own. However, the management at Winchester chose the exact moment in time when the reputation (even if somewhat undeserved) and quality of the Model 70 were the only things keeping it afloat......to introduce the cheaply made, universally critisised Post-64 push feed Models. They may have said "Model 70" on the side, but no one believed that lie.

The Model 70 steadily lost market share as shooters discovered that the Remington (no beauty queeen) and the Savage (truely ugly) were just as well made and effective as the so-called Model 70 being produced by Winchester. A few years later the final blow was struck when Bill Ruger introduced the best of the lot in the beautiful and mauser-like Model 77. True Mauser's were aslo available from many manufactures and importers. The days of the Model 70 ruling the roost were over.

By the time Winchester wised up and introduced the CRF Model 70's...the damage was done. Rugers were bettr engineered and better looking, Remingtons were accepted as reliable and more accurate, and the Savage rifles, which had always been outstandingly accurate, began to produce rifles that weren't nearly as butt-ugly as in the past (in fact some of them are almost pretty). Winchester's Model 70 would never again be "The Rifleman's Rifle"....no matter how many times Winchester said it was.

Now we have the SC Model 70's. Never mind the fact that no one even knows who owns Winchester fron day-to-day, so they can't play on the "buy American" phrase anymore. There is much more competition today than there ever was when the original Model 70 built it's reputation. Even though the new Model 70's probably ARE the best Winchester has ever made.....they will NEVER have the reputation of those Pre-64 rifles.

Older shooters grew up when the Model 70 was without peer and many younger shooters grew up reading O'Connor and those of his time who wrote so often that the Model 70 was the best rifle made (and were actually telling mostly the truth in the 1940's and 50's when they started their careers). The pre-64 rifles are LEGENDS while the new rifles.....even though technically "better" will never achieve that status. They will be accepted as one of the best rifles of their time.....but never the "best". Those times are gone with the wind.