Looks to be in decent shape. No affiliation but thought it might be of interest to some - seems to be reasonable $ from what I can glean from past auctions. Thought about it a bit and decided I don’t need anymore dust collectors, although I’ll probably be pissed at myself tomorrow.

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/792659226

Looks legit. We’ve seen a number of .358s which are .308 rifles, rebored with a cleverly reworked barrel stamp, changing a ‘0’ into a ‘5’. The barrel stamp photo is not super clear in the listing, but clear enough to make me think it’s a real .358. Not a bad price, assuming it’s genuine!

I don't think that 5 looks right.

I’d pass, especially considering the sellers Inspection/Return Policy....

Hit your ctrl and + button and blow it up.

I agree with you Fireball2

I am no expert. Why would featherweight .358 have a different rear sight than any other featherweight I have seen? All I have seen have a folding rear sight.

Thanks

Easy too see the area of the barrel around '358' has been over polished, someone should arrange a ftf cash buy and punch that lying fraud in the teeth!

Low comb stocked guns used the Winchester 22G rear sight until 1953 and Winchester 22K rear sight until 1957 (both were leaf spring sights). The Marble No. 69 and Lyman No. 16B (both folding leaf rear sights) were used with the Monte Carlo comb stocked guns.

Have always had a thing for the classic lines of the low comb stocked guns....

Not saying it isn't, or couldn't be, a fraud but the marking appear to match up well with 2 others. The top of the 5 slightly lower than the 3 & 8. Over polishing is not evident in a different view. Picture quality and lighting make a big difference.

Agreed the "5" looks suspect, seemingly a different size and position than the 3 and the 8. I would definately not be a bidder on that rifle.

Are there no factory records for any pre '64 model 70's? Cody Firearms museum has records for 21s and many old levers why not Model 70s?

Polishing Room Records (indicating the date a particular firearm was serialized) exist for a limited serial # range of early pre64 Model 70’s. There are no known records indicating individual Model 70 rifle caliber and configuration. Hoppers full of Model 70 records (as well as other Winchester models) were destroyed (burned) in the 1950’s to free up room and fuel the factories furnaces....

Gunswizard, Gunner500 (and all): I have a pair of pre-64 Winchester Model 70 Featherweights in caliber 358 Winchester and they both have the slightly "shorter" 5 there in between the 3 and the 8!
Exactly as shown in the G.B. ad.
I would refer you doubting Thomas's to page 116 of Roger C. Rules classic reference book "The Rifleman's Rifle" (Alliance Books 1982).
The photo there on page 116, in the definitive work on pre-64 Model 70's, shows EXACTLY the same "5" (a few thousandths shorter!) as in the G.B. ad and as on my Rifles and those depicted in this thread.
I have owned my 358 Rifles since long before anyone would (could afford!) to go through the extensive process of "re-boring" then re-stamping/engraving a 308 Winchester barrel to 358 Winchester - so I am 100% certain they are originals.
Plus my Rifles are in the correct serial number range for the factory original 358 Winchester Featherweights. In my 50+ years of collecting pre-64 Model 70's I have seen 3 (three) attempted "forgeries" of 358 Featherweights and believe me when I say they were extremely easy to discern as fraudulent/faked/forgeries!
My contention is the G.B. Rifle is original.
Long live the Riflemans Rifle
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Alright then, I should have said a punch in the teeth if it's found to be a forgery, that said, where in hells half acre are all the mysterious RARE Winchesters coming from all of a sudden, as a whole, I smell enough bullshit to keep my tomatoes fertilized till im dead.

While due-diligence is needed when buying collectible model 70s, I wouldn’t hang too much of question mark onto this rifle. Although the .358 Win is a moderately hard to find model 70, it is not a truly rare chambering. As such, I’d give it the benefit of the doubt, unless there is a smoking gun. As I noted above, this stamp looks legit to me. Most of the faked .358s I’ve seen have a poorly modified “0” converted into a “5”. I don’t see any evidence of that on this rifle.

For those on this thread who are just getting introduced to the idea of faked rare model 70s, it really is a big problem. When Winchester went through financial meltdown and was purchased by employees, a great deal of obsolete tooling was sold and entered unknown hands. Because Winchester never seemed to destroy ANYTHING, this represented a lot of production tooling for obsolete rifles ending up on the street. You can still find many of these tools available for sale in firearm auctions. Among the things sold off were the original barrel roll stamps for the pre-64 model 70.

The existence of the barrel roll stamps has enabled counterfeiters to begin producing very sophisticated fakes of any chambering they desire. In addition to the very rare cataloged chamberings (like 7M/M), they also began producing non-cataloged chamberings (you pick the cartridge). The fact Winchester was willing to make a rifle in just about any chambering a customer requested, combined with the facts the serial number production records were destroyed, and that the tooling was floating around on the open market, created the perfect opportunity for counterfeiters to make “rare” rifles with almost no risk of being proven a fraud. One model 70 expert (Vic VanBallenberghe) has surmised there are more fake rare mod 70s in circulation than real ones.

In our shop, we offer authentication services for model 70s and regularly have extremely rare mod 70s sent to us for inspection and authentication. Sometimes fakes are poorly done and the problems are easy to spot. However, we have also seen exquisite fakes which have stamps and finishes which are indistinguishable from factory original, without a forensic examination. We average about 50/50 finding both fakes and genuine rifles. It’s worth noting - the rifles which get sent to us for authentication are not typically cataloged configurations. They are verified model 70 special order chamberings where only a few are known to exist (.30 W.C.F., for example). These are rifles which will generally have a collector value of $10k upwards, and seems to be where the counterfeiters have focused their efforts.

Hope that’s useful for anyone who was trying to wrap their head around why and how faked model 70s is actually a real thing.

^^^ Great educational post pre64win! I know you know your stuff. That said, if I read Rule correctly, all .358 are Featherweights and only about 2000 were made. In addition, that chambering had some ignition and extraction issues due to the relatively small shoulder. Winchester "recalled" and replaced with whatever chambering the customer wanted. As such, that 2000 number may be high.

I guess different people have definitions of "moderately hard to find", "rare", and "truly rare", but I must say I wonder what your definitions are. Absolutely no disrespect intended, and I truly appreciate the knowledge you bring to the forum.

Best,
Gun Doc

Hey Gun Doc. You’re not wrong at all. Rare is certainly relative and a .358 is not at all common. There are a lot of model 70s in the scarce and highly collectible category, which are not so rare (and valuable) that they are tempting for counterfeiters to fake. Nobody is faking National Match rifles, of which 1,971 were made. But we’ve seen fake Super Grade Featherweight rifles, of which 906 (I think) were made. The reason is that National Match rifles only fetch around $2,000, while the SG Fwt will be worth 2.5x that amount. Mostly, fakes in this price range are pretty unsophisticated,often just a collections of correct parts which were never together from the factory. However, when people begin faking pre-war carbines with fraudulent sub-200 serial numbers, or rare straight taper configurations in oddball calibers, these rifles can fetch $10,000 - $25,000 at auction, and this seems to be where the fake gun market been has mostly focused.

I agree gunner. That area looks to have been tampered with. That barrel stamp could have been tigged up, polished out, re-stamped and re-blued. That area stands out to me, but i work with steel all day long too...

Thanks for the lesson pre64win, appreciate the info.

BSA, yessir, awful suspect, if it's real fine, hope it finds a happy home, but, old men dying, and their widows/families freeing up rifles is one thing, the massive influx of rare guns is most troubling, maybe we could make purchase contracts with the caveat,........................."if this rifle is found to be fake, YOU get to wear it, permanently, sign on the dotted line sir"

If I was in the business of faking (or reselling) rare firearms, it'd be in my best interest to defend them on websites where they were questioned. To NOT try to legitimize them would be a real wonderment considering all the effort put into producing the fake.

Just sayin.

What I'm not saying is that anyone here is doing that. But, the bigger picture is that if a few people could be convinced that the forgeries are real, then they'd go to work pushing the fakes too, snowballing clear down to the mom and pop buyer. Eventually the lore would be indistinguishable from the fact.

If I was the man that had to know, which thankfully I don't, I'd want to see the Winchester roll stamp for myself. The next best thing would be like Varmintguy, own some early originals to compare to. Better yet, be the original buyer of one.

I'll admit to not being a WInchester guy, but I don't think anyone is going to deny those 5's don't line up with the 3 and 8, for whatever reason. Why is that? Why would WInchester allow that?

Maybe they did allow it, but I'd need to know that for a guar-an-f'n-teed fact, and I'd be careful about what I considered a fact, like I said, if I was the guy that had to know. I'm glad I don't need to know.

LOL, lots of [if's] in all that, does indeed make one wonder, I think the fakers capitalize on that, have often thought about having a FWT in 358, or better still a 7mm Mauser, guess it wont happen until someones Granny leads me down a hallway to an old forgotten dusty closet.

You may have missed it Fireball - I posted it as general interest here with no affiliation. How would seller know to “defend” his item?

pre64win - appreciate your post.

No idea if it was real or not but I think the lighting contributed to the area around the 358 appearing polished. The other photos of the area did not show the same shine.

It may be interesting to see the 5 stamp on a 375 to compare the two for height, etc. Just a thought.

Got a 375 right here, it's square across the top and bottom, zero chicanery.

Guys, I want to be careful to not cast doubt on that particular GunBroker rifle. The detectable differences between a legit rifle and a good fake are too subtle to be seen in photos. In fact, they are often too subtle to be seen with the naked eye in person. The ways we can authenticate a rifle are not things we make public (we really don’t want the counterfeiters to know what we’re looking for), but they are definitely not things you can evaluate in a low resolution photo online.

As for the alignment of the 5 in the 358 stamp, this doesn’t concern me. The caliber stamp was not a part of the master roll stamp engraving, but we’re an added part of the stamp, coming in the form of a stacked set of numbers and letters. Some slight misalignment is not a smoking gun of it being incorrect.

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/792844800

Here is another 358 currently listed. Picture 19 shows another rifle with another “5” not perfectly aligned.

Are any of the other numbers ever misaligned on a pre 64 model 70, or only the 5 on the 358?

Just posted another variation of the 358 WIN. barrel stamp in the Image Gallery. This stamp where all numerals appear to be of the same height is identical to the stamp on the last 358 Featherweight that I had the opportunity to examine at the Allentown show a year or so ago. Just wondering how many variations of this stamp exist and are we to believe they are all correct?

Just another thought, does the mismatched numeral 5 barrel stamp also appear on M88’s chambered for the 358 WIN.?

Here's another thought.

Were the 88's and 70's the same barrels screwed on different receivers and wood?

Honest question.

Here is a some interesting arithmetic, and an observation. From 1935 to 1963, 29 years inclusive, Winchester made 581471 Model 70 rifles.
Ingnoring things like peak production years and the low production WWII years, you get 20051 rifles per year.
Figuring in some holidays, if we go with 50 weeks a year, we get 401 per week.
Assume a 40 hour week, and you get a nice round 10 per hour, or a rifle every 6 minutes.
If they worked double shifts, you still get a rifle every 12 minutes.
In 1953, I believe the peak production year, they made 43905. 50 weeks, 40 hour week, works out to a Model 70 every 164 SECONDS.
Now, maybe some of my assumptions are off, but them's the numbers. Plus, Winchester was building other guns at the time.

Point is, those folks were busy, yet we worry that a digit is a bit off on a barrel stamp. Now, I realize things like that out of line digit and such are all we have at times to spot a fake. But you must admit those numbers add an interesting perspective.

All these Winchester collectors and nobody knows if there are other misaligned numbers? If there aren't, I think you have your answer as to the authenticity of the 358's. Maybe quite a few guys have the fakes and don't want to talk about it.

Winchester made the highest quality bolt action rifles in that time period. Quality and fit and finish was their trademark. The rifleman's rifle. They could get the numbers stamped in a straight line on some of the 358's, but not others?

Come on.

I might feel better if I saw a misaligned 88 in 358.

Course they don't bring 4k...

Are there 243, 308, 270, or 30-06 with misaligned stamp numbers?

Course they don't bring 4k either...

That's the elephant in the room.

These were roll stampted wich is a precess a tool is used , tools wear and break then require replacement so some variations will be present.

I have always found it odd that somewhere someone knows how many of each caliber where made but no records exist? How or where do the numbers come from?

The M70 358 roll stamp machine was used so much it wore out but the 30-06 machine never did?

I wonder is there is any consistency in the straight line 358 serial numbers before the 358 machine wore out and the serial numbers after the machine wore out and then was hastily and poorly repaired by Winchester to stamp the 358 numbers out of line?

Could have happened I suppose...

But, I wouldn't bet my money on a Winchester with crooked serial number

Just me.

I don't understand why this isn't being hashed out. Not enough members on this forum? Not enough rifles to look at for inconsistent numbers?

I have seen multiple Win 88s in 358 go for 2800 all the way up to 3350! I have been wanting one for quite some time but they are going for crazy money. I know they only made like 2000 model 70s in 358.( But a bunch were sent back) Can anyone guess how many 88s were made in 358?

I think because something 'suspect' is so easy to walk away from, even a caveman can do it, plus, it's MUCH cheaper on all fronts.

A bit off topic but is a 358 fwt barrel the same profile and muzzle diameter as the other cartridges chambered in fwts? (curious as that .550 muzzle would make for a pretty skinny barrel with the .358 hole in it)

I have a 358 FW that was bought new by a close (local and lifelong) friend’s father. He now lives in the same house his father grew up in, where the gun resided since it was purchased new. I ended up buying it from him a few years ago. The father has passed, but I spoke with him about the gun many years ago (before I bought it and long before he or I knew it had collector value) and he told me it was the first rifle he bought brand new. He went on to say that he just “had to have” the 358 chambering once he heard about it, and that pushed him to order his first brand new rifle. He told me through the years that he grew to regret the decision because he had trouble finding ammo for it locally.

It’s an early low-comb variation.

Anyway, I believe it is 100% correct and will check the “358” stamp when I get home tonight. I don’t know if the “5” is even or below the level, but whichever way it is, I’m certain it was stamped that way at the factory.

This man owned the rifle since new AND didn’t particular seem to like it, let alone put a value on it high enough to warrant any fakery or forgery. So it ought to be a good representation of what a factory stamp for an early 358 FW should look like.

Jsgwoodsman: Would love to see a photo of that stamping if possible.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

VarmintGuy

I’ll snap one and upload it here!

That's great jsgwoodsman, I'm curious too.

The lighting was tricky and I’m no great photographer, but here it is. The “5” is definitely lower than the 3 and 8 on mine. And I noticed where the top of the 5 struck the barrel, the edge is a bit flattened out. I don’t know if this is only in my rifle or others too?

If you look back in this post I pictured 3 seperate rifles, including the one in question, that have the same anomaly. A couple very knowledgeable M70 guys have also stated this is correct. The rifle in question has since sold for the asking price, we can probably stop beating this dead horse.

Now we can move on to debating whether jsg's rifle is original.

Thanks for the pics jsg....very informative.

Well there you have it. I'm a believer now.

It's good to get to the bottom of these things. Now the whole world can buy a poorly struck 358 and know they have a right gun.

These are the questions a collectors forum should be addressing

Good call!

jsgwoodsman,
Two things:
Thanks for the pics.
Damn fine pics!!!

Jsgwoodsman: Your picture is excellent - thank you!
And your pictured Rifles caliber stamping matches my Rifles EXACTLY!
Like I mentioned in my previous posting the original linked to 358 was certainly a factory correct Rifle.
As our mine - as is yours.
Thanks again.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

99guy: I don't think the picture posted by Jsgwoodsman shows a "poorly struck 358" - I contend it shows a well "struck" (roll stamped) caliber designation on a barrel. That was "made" (struck or rolled) WITH a roll die that has a "5" that was created being a few thousandths shorter than the 3" and the "8" that adjoins it!
This is what I have observed for decades now!
It is the tiniest of aberrations but it is "right".
I'd bet on it - based on my experiences and the previously referenced depiction in Roger Rules book as well.
Long live the Rifleman's Rifle.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Very interesting development on the "5".

You’re both welcome -
You never know what may be sitting in a broom closet in a Vermont farmhouse for decades... but when you find it, it’s nice to know (if possible) if it’s original or not!

NICE! that helps, a lot, Thanks.

I wouldn't debate or get hung up on the language used. Important thing is there seems to be a consensus that the gun and other guns similarly struck or rolled are right.

2 days ago I would not have bought that gun, today I would. I suspect others are of similar mind.

Tmitch: I went back to the original posters gunbroker link and according to what I read there there were NO bids on the Rifle in question - the auction has ended but again no bids were made there on gunbroker.
Do you have information to the contrary?
The reason I ask is so's I can update the values on my firearms inventories.
TIA for any information.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

This link will show the completed auction. .358 FWT

One bid for $2850

You gonna give the guy his teeth back now?

It will be on GI soon.
Perry County is the one that snagged this one!

You’re welcome!

I just looked at my copy of Rule's book and in a photo of a 358 barrel the 5 does appear to a little shorter than the 3 and the 8

Some of the questions raised were related to the position of the digit 5 in both the pre-64 FWT 358 and on a 375 H&H. Here are a couple of the examples of those rollmarks on pre-64s I looked at this week and that I know left the factory chambered as stamped and currently remain so.

First one is a FWT 358


The other is a transitional model DOM 1948 375 H&H rollmark


I’m posting because I find it curious that the 358 rollmark is quite aligned, while the digit 3 on the 375 is a bit smudged. Before this latter photo starts an argument about the authenticity of the 375, here’s the original box


My main point in posting these photos is to show that mechanical processes performed on an assembly line are prone to variation. I don’t know whether the rifle in the OP is authentic, but I wouldn’t make a definitive determination based on the cartridge stamp alone.

I would only have taken them if the rifle was a fake ; ]