Project 670|Winchester Hunting, Shooting & Reloading|Forum|Winchester Collector

TXGunNut said
For those of you who don’t know the Winchester Model 670 was a budget version if the Model 70 built in the late 1960’s thru sometime in the late 1970’s. They feature the maligned push-feed action, a birch stock and a blind magazine. The rifle also had a 22″ barrel that has a reputation of delivering excellent accuracy for a sporting rifle. My first hunting rifle was a 670 and after years of learning to shoot and reload I discovered it would consistently deliver groups in the neighborhood of .67″, often less. My pre-hunt sight-in target was a business card at 100 yards. Sadly, after hundreds, likely thousands, of rounds later a bit of the rifling let go and it is now a 35 Whelen residing in a nice Boyd Walnut stock.
Fast forward about 20 years, I was perusing the offerings at my local orphanage and found a bit later 670 (SN G1350279) with a butchered stock but otherwise decent shape. I put it in the older 670’s stock and put a decent Redfield scope on it with bases and rings from my parts box. Goal was to make a loaner/backup rifle for my brother’s South Texas deer lease. It wasn’t pretty but it shot very well, at least one youngster shot his first deer with it. A few years ago I realized it wasn’t getting used any more as a deer camp rifle so it came home a few weeks ago. I remembered it shot very well and decided to see just how well it would shoot. I took it to the range and was reminded it had an excellent 2.5# trigger and shot a very respectable group with my standard hunting load. I ordered a Boyd Pro Varmint laminated stock with optional pillar bedding and a big brown truck brought it today. I’ll glass bed the recoil lug after Mr. Potterfield’s order gets here. 
It’s been a train wreck around here today so I’m not going to do any disassembly or fitting. I’m sorry if this offends any of the pre-64 purists but I thought I’d have a little fun with a solid Winchester design without hurting a collectible Winchester. By necessity it’s also a low-budget project but that just adds to the challenge. 
 
Mike

  

I know we are supposed to be pre 64 but there are many that can’t have one and thus won’t join our Forum.  We are a dying breed and so may be our Forum.

Chuck said

TXGunNut said
For those of you who don’t know the Winchester Model 670 was a budget version if the Model 70 built in the late 1960’s thru sometime in the late 1970’s. They feature the maligned push-feed action, a birch stock and a blind magazine. The rifle also had a 22″ barrel that has a reputation of delivering excellent accuracy for a sporting rifle. My first hunting rifle was a 670 and after years of learning to shoot and reload I discovered it would consistently deliver groups in the neighborhood of .67″, often less. My pre-hunt sight-in target was a business card at 100 yards. Sadly, after hundreds, likely thousands, of rounds later a bit of the rifling let go and it is now a 35 Whelen residing in a nice Boyd Walnut stock.
Fast forward about 20 years, I was perusing the offerings at my local orphanage and found a bit later 670 (SN G1350279) with a butchered stock but otherwise decent shape. I put it in the older 670’s stock and put a decent Redfield scope on it with bases and rings from my parts box. Goal was to make a loaner/backup rifle for my brother’s South Texas deer lease. It wasn’t pretty but it shot very well, at least one youngster shot his first deer with it. A few years ago I realized it wasn’t getting used any more as a deer camp rifle so it came home a few weeks ago. I remembered it shot very well and decided to see just how well it would shoot. I took it to the range and was reminded it had an excellent 2.5# trigger and shot a very respectable group with my standard hunting load. I ordered a Boyd Pro Varmint laminated stock with optional pillar bedding and a big brown truck brought it today. I’ll glass bed the recoil lug after Mr. Potterfield’s order gets here. 
It’s been a train wreck around here today so I’m not going to do any disassembly or fitting. I’m sorry if this offends any of the pre-64 purists but I thought I’d have a little fun with a solid Winchester design without hurting a collectible Winchester. By necessity it’s also a low-budget project but that just adds to the challenge. 
 
Mike
  

I know we are supposed to be pre 64 but there are many that can’t have one and thus won’t join our Forum.  We are a dying breed and so may be our Forum.
  

This is the 3rd post I’ve read that says this is supposed to be a Pre 64 Forum? I didn’t see that on my application to join and we clearly have a Commemorative resource page. No doubt the Pre 64’s are sweet but why are we limiting the Forum to only that? Collecting Commemoratives brought me here and I’ve enjoyed reading these posts and learning and I have branched out and acquired a few 94’s, a First and second model 1894 and an awesome NWMP 1873 as my knowledge and appreciation for all Winchesters has grown. In addition, the WACA magazine seems to support Commemorative collectors with many articles published. Thus my confusion that I keep seeing a theme in the Forum that we are only here for Pre 64’s. I hope we are all welcome? 

We’ll bring the modern stuff in one day….I’m an equal opportunity collector and Winchester lover. 

If accuracy is the sole criterion of excellence for bolt action high power rifles, the Mauser 98 action and its descendants have long since been proven inferior by decades of registered and recorded competition. 

If superior safe handling of escaped gas is the criterion, the Mauser 1898 and descendants lose again. 

But that’s not why we buy what we buy. 

We argue technical issues but esthetics are why we buy. The original Ruger Number One was not the most accurate rifle in the World, the Winchester Model 1894 not the best woods rifle of all time, the Colt Peacemaker probably inferior to a couple of its contemporaries — but the Ruger turned heads from Day One because it was the creation of the gifted Lenard Brownell. The Winchester and the Colt were largely styled and perfected by William Mason, whose sense of line and proportion were beyond reproach. Compared to their competitors or otherwise, these were beautiful weapons pleasing to the eye and hand. They still are and they still sell. 

We make excuses but that is why we buy them, for the same reason we lust for E-type Jaguars and Ferrari California Spyders. (We sure as hell wouldn’t buy those for gas mileage and reliability.)