My Dad bought a 220 Swift 1953-vintage Model 70. It's darn near cherry, or it was after I laid the action in the solvent tank and got all the kloodge and 60 year old mung scrubbed off. Bottom metal is beautiful, and the barrel still has its throat, just shiny and pretty as can be. Obviously, while there's no box and hang tag, this was a safe queen. And even though Dad paid full collector price, he wants a rifle, not a relic.

But the rifle has issues. The bedding needs work. All the screws drag, there's plenty of springing, AND one of the bolt lugs shows no contact.

Mounted glass to it, finally shot it yesterday, just to get it on paper, then shot three for a "baseline" group, a .910 under less-than ideal conditions. Now my plan is to shoot groups, using shims and taking out the barrel and mid screw between groups to see what happens. I expect, a LOT will happen.

I've already done the bedding/trigger voodoo on several "shooter" pre-64s, with excellent results compared to pre-voodoo. In each case, the owners didn't care about collector value, they wanted a rifle.

So what would you all do? No touchie? Give it the works? And have any of you isolated the sight lug screw and fully floated the barrel, or did full length bedded work better?

"He wants a rifle, not a relic." Give it the works.

It's your dads rifle, do what he wants. Besides every time a person modifies an original and takes it out of that category it increases the price of collector rifles.

It's a rifle not a priceless painting.....

I would go ahead and try the mods you have in mind and see if they result in acceptable accuracy before you go bedding it etc....

Shoot it first

I have zero collectors. Every rifle that comes in the door gets tinkered with. Start with the less obvious / intrusive changes and work your way up the list until it shoots the way you and your Dad think it should shoot...

Yep, unless you're going to turn it later, do your magic and enjoy that classy rifle.

I would like to add, I have several pre-64's that to look at the bedding you would think they wouldn't shoot worth a darn, yet they do nice 3 shot 3/4" clover leafs at 100yds.
Shoot it you might be pleasantly surprised

With Pre 64's I've found the easiest first attempt to get them to shoot is to remove the front knob screw and leave it out while shooting. This usually gets it down to at least a reasonable shooter IMO. Handloading will usually pick up a bit more in my experience. After that, decide if you want to mess with the stock.

Another idea is to get a Pre 64 stock off ebay or someplace that you don't mind doing all that to and put the original stock away for safe keeping. Then do all you want to the stock to get it to shoot like you expect it to without damaging the value of the collector grade stock.

In fact, I may have just the stock for you... and it's already bedded.....

Bob

This is a very generous offer. I would jump on this. I think the 220s are more collectable than many other chamberings, maybe not a consideration now but could be later. Not sure how many Swifts were made but ones with good barrels are not that common. Might run this by the Winchester collectors forum as they know much more than I do about pre 64s.

I've owned dozens of pre'64 M/70's never found the need to bed a single one of them nor tinker with them much to get them to shoot MOA groups with loads each rifle liked.

If the rifle is as nice as you say it is, id buy a "shooter" stock off of ebay and glass bed that one. Keep the original in original unmolested condition. As for your bedding question, yes i have freefloated a std wt barrel. I used to have good pictures on photobucket, but you all know about photobucket. Freefloating the std wt barrel usually gives excellent results, as does a good bedding job.

I'm not a collector or expert on bedding but have had some shooting experience with three pre-'64s in .30-06 and one in .300 H&H. All are original guns and remain unbedded. All shoot well, but may not perfectly hold zero from time to time, They are generally plenty close for hunting, however, bedding might correct this altogether.

As for the forearm screw, I've never had the need to tamper with one, but would if I had an accuracy problem. On two .30-06s (the third is a featherweight), I don't know how tight or loose the screws are, but on the .300 Magnum, it's tight.

One can bed the rifle in a way which is unobtrusive yet totally effective. I would not be too concerned about lug contact. It is most likely the left (top) lug which is not touching and this is because the sear lifts the rear of the bolt up when the rifle is cocked. Since rifles are cycled more empty than loaded, you get this wear pattern. When the rifle is fired, the lug makes contact when the trigger breaks. Not an ideal situation but there it is. GD

If it’s an original, unmolested stock I wouldn’t do a thing to it. If it’s already been altered, it really doesn’t matter what one does to it.

If it was mine, I'd probably drop it in a McM or D'Arcy Echols Legend, save the original stock.

Best of both worlds.

DF

+1, one of those rare times you can have it both ways.

I won’t own a rifle that is not highly accurate, and would do what it takes to get it there. Or I’d sell it.