Pre-'64 Winchester

[No_Regerts]

+1. Thanks Spitpatch.

Question - where does the "pre 64 claw type extractor" fit into the story? I've heard the phrase, but don't know the real differences. Also, IIRC, you could buy a Model 70 during the 90s that featured the older type of extractor?

@No_Regerts, I don't dispute your marketing contention, in fact I agree with it, but I submit that 6mm and 6.5 gained traction also because they permit tiny groups at 1000 yards with nominal recoil. You don't get much energy on arrival, but you do get flat trajectory, good BC, and potentially tiny groups.

The 6mms and 6.5s can do great when properly twisted and with the right bullets. I think the 243 has held several records at 1000. Recoil is the wages of how big a caliber you wanna shoot and how heavy it has to be to match those slippery 6mm and 6.5mm choices, for sure.

 

[saread]

I never really understood the blanket revulsion for post '64 Winchesters. I've got a circa 1983 Mod 70 XTR in '06 in the safe that is as nice a firearm as I own. High gloss bluing, gloss finished monte carlo stock, machine cut checkering, jeweled bolt, fit and finish is really nice. With good ammo, it is sub MOA, easy. The push feed bolt has never misfed. The XTR's were not super grade, just gussied up a bit. I would put this particular rifle up against any other Winchester, from any era. It is a stone cold nice rifle, stone reliable, and lights out accurate. Now, there's also a late '60's Mod 88 in the safe that I wouldn't put on my worst enemy. Winchester did learn the error of their ways and made some outstanding rifles.

 

[baker3gun]

saread - my Dad bought this exact same rifle in .270, in approximately 1977.

He gave it to my younger brother. I'm still trying to get it from him.

 

[Spitpatch]

+1. Thanks Spitpatch.

Question - where does the "pre 64 claw type extractor" fit into the story? I've heard the phrase, but don't know the real differences. Also, IIRC, you could buy a Model 70 during the 90s that featured the older type of extractor?

@No_Regerts, I don't dispute your marketing contention, in fact I agree with it, but I submit that 6mm and 6.5 gained traction also because they permit tiny groups at 1000 yards with nominal recoil. You don't get much energy on arrival, but you do get flat trajectory, good BC, and potentially tiny groups.

Claw Extractor most normally synonymous with Controlled Feed. The bolt carries the massive lengthy extractor right alongside itself. Mausers are the best exhibit of this. In a true controlled feed action, a fresh cartridge CANNOT be brought toward battery until the chambered round (or brass) is away. Also, the bolt should not be closed on a chambered round that has not come from the magazine (some guns will not allow this at all). The extractor grasps the rim of the new cartridge at the very beginning of the return stroke of the bolt toward battery and holds it to the end of process.

In a push-feed gun (MOST modern bolts are of this type), the extractor is a small blade carried in the recess of the bolt face. The "fault" (if it ever was one) is that the fresh cartridge spends a significant amount of time during its travel to battery actually attached to nothing, depending entirely on its initial direction out of the magazine toward battery. The bolt can be closed on a cartridge merely tossed freely by hand toward the chamber, since that is what is accomplished anyway by a cartridge originating in the magazine.

You are right about the re-introduction of the claw extractor in the 90's, as I referred to late in my previous post here.

 

[Spitpatch]

Ok, now THAT answers my question!
THANK YOU, Spitpatch!
I appreciate such a well versed and thoughtful answer.
You've definitely risen to "A scholar and a gentleman" status on this day, sir.

Dean

And there aren't too may of us left, are there?

 

[saread]

saread - my Dad bought this exact same rifle in .270, in approximately 1977.

He gave it to my younger brother. I'm still trying to get it from him.

Cool. There's a bit of a story behind mine as well. In the early '90's I was looking for a new hunting rifle as I was still carrying a post war sporterized G98 (a story unto itself) in .270. One of my hunting buddies told me he knew of a collection that was being liquidated and there was a 30-06 in there. I asked how much, he said $300. I said sure, get it. So, I bought the rifle sight unseen. What he delivered was a brand new, in box, unfired, Model 70 XTR. My socks just about dropped off when I opened the box. It was beautiful. I put a scope on it, got some load data from my buddy, loaded up some ammo and headed to the range. After I found the middle of the paper, I put 5 shots on the x you could cover with a nickle. That rifle has killed a lot of deer. From my experience, I don't have a lot of bad things to say about post '64 Winchesters.

 

[baker3gun]

@Spitpatch - thanks! It is always a pleasure to tap a knowledgeable source, even more so when information is well written.

saread - concur! My dad's rifle is a beauty, and very accurate. I fired it a few times at range trips in my teens, and hunted with it once. My dad entered the reloading world when he bought that rifle. He worked up loads with nothing more than a Rockchucker. His small foray contributed to my much deeper later experiences in developing match grade ammunition for a wide assortment of pistol and rifle calibers. I still love the long gangly skinny looking .270 cartridge.

 

[po18guy]

Look at Ruger 77s. Controlled feed and cut checkering. Ruger managed to produce what Winchester no longer could. Investment cast? Alloy pieces? Yes. But an evolution of the classic Peter Paul Mauser design.

 

[No_Regerts]

Look at Ruger 77s. Controlled feed and cut checkering. Ruger managed to produce what Winchester no longer could. Investment cast? Alloy pieces? Yes. But an evolution of the classic Peter Paul Mauser design.

Sort of. The M77 wasn't controlled feed until much later in production. It looked like it, but was not mechanically.

 

[sobo]

An example of a true "pre-64" Model 70, this one in .30-'06.
The S/N of this piece places its manufacture in mid-1946.
It was my father's gun that he bought prior to his move to Alaska in 1950.
To this day, only the Grand Sobo himself and males in direct lineage of the Grand Sobo have fired this rifle.

 

[sobo]

A bit more beat up is my father's very first gun, a Model 94 in .32 Win Special.
He bought it used in 1943, when he was but a sprout of 13...

 

[sobo]

I also have Dad's Model 12 in 12-gauge out in the safe.
It's also a pre-64 model. Well, they stopped makin' 'em in '64, so it's a pre-64 by fate...
I don't have a pic of that one in my library yet...

 

[baker3gun]

...
To this day, only males in direct lineage of the Grand Sobo have fired this rifle.
...

I want to shoot it!











j/k

 

[jbett98]

Theoretically you can hang upside down and chamber a round with a control feed rifle, not so with a push feed.

 

[po18guy]

Sort of. The M77 wasn't controlled feed until much later in production. It looked like it, but was not mechanically.

Good point. To clarify, the MKII (1991>) has controlled round feeding. That's gonna be 30 years?!?!?! Crap.

 

[HaveGun]

My dad earned the bulk of his substantial wealth and retirement on the trade of pre-`64 Model 70's.

As a result, all of the rifles he has gifted me over the years are Model 70 Winchesters. Two are custom rifles based on the pre-`64 action, and one is a Model 70 XTR Featherweight in .257 Roberts made in 1982. All are heads and shoulders above anything I could afford to buy off the rack today.

I recently decided to sell my good ol' Ruger M77 in .30-06 in favor of using a pre-'64 Model 70 action in a synthetic stock and chambered in .30-06 Ackley Improved. The action is so much smoother, with a much better trigger, and will shoot 3/8" groups at 100 yards.

 

[po18guy]

You could have avoided all of this unnecessary hassle by simply buying a Tikka. Yeah, yeah, I know.

 

[No_Regerts]

Good point. To clarify, the MKII (1991>) has controlled round feeding. That's gonna be 30 years?!?!?! Crap.

next year, people born in the year 2000 can drink....

 

[HaveGun]

You could have avoided all of this unnecessary hassle by simply buying a Tikka. Yeah, yeah, I know.

Hey, I'm not an insufferable romantic. My daily driver is a 2019 4Runner. I can appreciate trading nostalgia for function. I would love to have a `79 Bronco as a daily driver. But working the action and pulling the trigger on my pre-`64 guns is just so much more enjoyable than anything I've experienced off the shelf in the gun shop that I just can't be happy with anything less.

 

[DeanMk]

Why do I get the feeling the license plate holder for HaveGun's 4Runner says, My other rifle is a Colt Sauer.