The Griffin&Howe side mounts mounted by them would have blind screws. So, since this is not the case it was not there work. These mounts were very popular at one time. Robert Raurk’s Model 70 in .375 H&H Mag. Has the same set up as yours. Today these mounts are not very popular. Put a low power adjustable Leupold scope on it, and you would have a very nice Kodiak Bear, Lion, or Cape Buffalo rifle. The 300 grain Nosler Partition works very nice on them. With good shot placement of course.
The front, and rear site are not factory. If you like the sites on the rifle. Sight the gun in with them. That is the one plus with the Griffin &Howe Mount is that you can take the scope off, and put it back on, and it will return to zero. You could get a Winchester 103c front site, and a Lyman 6W two leaf rear, as well as a sight hood. But, since the gun has been altered I would most likely not invest in the correct sites.
November 5, 2014

Hi zhammett-
I’ll waste my time here repeating much of what Bo Rich has already said… That’s a nice rifle you have… One whose sighting equipment was changed to suit the predilections of the owner. Nothing wrong with that unless you are a prissy “collector” (like me)…
The G&H side mounts had two notable advantages back in the day… First was that when M70s were not designed for top mounted scopes, these were one of the options. They could even work with a M54 and it’s awkward bolt handle, since the longer eye relief scopes of the day would let the shooter put the scope far enough forward that the bolt handle would clear the ocular bell and still give a full sight picture. Second was, as Bo pointed out, that the G&H double lever mounts let you take the scope off (or look under it) and have unfettered access to iron sights, with reasonable return-to-zero when the scope is reattached. Pretty important when scopes were not as reliably weatherproof as they are now…
Next thing is speculative on my part… I have heard (and believe) that only G&H did the “blind” scope mount installation (no exposed screw heads/slots). If somebody knows otherwise, please tell me… That is not the same thing as saying that G&H ONLY did blind installations, but since their mounts were widely sold, it becomes impossible to say who installed the mount unless G&H has a record of work they did on the rifle… Heck… For a while in the 1940s Winchester specifically cataloged a factory-installed G&H mount/Lyman Alaskan combination as a factory “Extra”. I have yet to find convincing proof that Winchester ever did a “blind” installation though. They seem to have used the same five-screw mount G&H sold to the trade in general…
So you’ve got a neat gun there, with a G&H mount that was probably aftermarket and not done by G&H (although you can try contacting them as they do have some records) and metallic sights (front and barrel) that were replaced by the owner…
Just my take…
Lou
WACA 9519; Studying Pre-64 Model 70 Winchesters
This rifle is typical of how the late Jack O’Connor recommended a Model 70 .375 Holland be set up for Africa, in several of his books and African articles. In fact, given its apparent fine condition, I’d say it is a wonderful exemplar of an African safari rifle from the late Thirties to the early Sixties. If you had gone to the gun counter of Abercrombie & Fitch in 1950, this is what they would likely have recommended.
The late Peter Barrett, whose name graced the mastheads of Argosy and Field & Stream, inter alia, made his first African Safari with a pair of stock Model 70 Super Grades, both set up with the identical G&H mounts, a .375 Holland and a .30 Gov’t 06. On O’Connor’s recommendation.
The G&H mount is installed with three screws plus two sturdy pins that serve to take up heavy recoil and prevent the screws from being sheared off. The .375 was not much of a risk but Aberchrombie could and would sell you a .505 Gibbs, which was another matter.
The principal purpose of the heavy duty G&H mount was not so much to protect a Western sheep hunter from failure of his fragile telescopic sight. It was, rather, to enable a safari client poking through riverine brush to stop a rapidly impending, gutshot Cape Buffalo from stomping him into strawberry jam. If he survived the encounter, after changing underwear he could reinstall the scope and continue his quest for lion or leopard.
The OP should not be discouraged and conclude his is an uncollectable Winchester Model 70. While it does not appeal to monomaniacal collectors of the model because it is not 100% “factory original”, not everyone feels this way.
The G&H mount is iconic in its own right. Hemingway’s famous Springfield, personally selected for him from the most accurate Armory inventory by Col. Townsend Whelen himself, then sent in-the-white to Griffin & Howe for stocking and finishing, wore this scope mount. [Although Hemingway disliked scopes and removed the scope from the rifle, leaving the base in place, when he took the rifle to Africa.]
The G&H QC mount was quite expensive to buy and the gunsmithing required to install it was not something any but the highly skilled should have been allowed to undertake. The stock had to be cut neatly and spot refinished. Placement of the screw and pin holes in the receiver wall had to be precisely located, or the rings would not align with the bore. Note the lack of adjustments in either half of the mount.
If I were younger and wanted a good magazine rifle in .375 Holland for Africa or coastal Alaska, I’d be delighted to have this Model 70 along. Even so, if I weren’t already gun-poor, I would love to handload it for hogs and display it over a bookcase of O’Connor, Page, Ruark, Whelen et al.
The brass tacks in the stock of a Comanche war chief’s Winchester 1866 are “aftermarket modifications” too.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
November 7, 2015

This rifle reminds me of a good friend gone too soon and another running buddy with similar hunting inclinations. We liked big-bore, quick-handling rifles when pursuing feral characters of the porcine persuasion. We liked them because unlike most game found in the Republic of Texas these disagreeable critters have been known to run both ways. It brings a new dimension to hunting when your prey questions your position on the food chain. One of us coined the expression: “You can’t have too many hog guns”. None of the three of us are likely to hunt the dark continent but we had our fun chasing piggies in the rougher parts of Texas and this old .375 would have been a welcome addition to any of our hunting rifle batteries.
Yeah, I like it.
Mike
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