Early postwar Model 70 Supergrade, rebarreled by H. H. Nagel to 22-250 - need some advice from Model 70 Gurus|Winchester Rifles|Forum|Winchester Collector

Thanks for the early response.  The thought that the stock might not be original to the receiver had crossed my mind and that may indeed be so.  Homer Nagel began his gunsmithing career in his garage about 1942 but very quickly became prominent in Bexar County because of his skill and the post-war boom in sporterizing Springfields and Mausers.  He was able to open a retail store and it became one of the Big Three gun stores in South Texas.  He might well have upgraded the ’47 receiver by ordering a replacement stock or using one that had been replaced by a custom stock for another customer.  I haven’t had the stock off yet so I don’t know what indications I might find.  

There are a couple of reasons I don’t intend to replace the barrel. Firstly, at least in Texas, the name “H. H. Nagel” still means something and is an indicator of quality work, which the rifle exhibits. The new barrel is tapered somewhat but it is definitely of a larger diameter than that of a typical sporter weight Winchester barrel. I haven’t photographed the re-inletting of the new barrel to the forearm, but he did a very nice, tight job of it.  He did leave the slots in the forearm into which the original barrel’s rear sight bolster would have been fitted, but the more I look at the work, the less I mind that flaw.  If I were to replace the present barrel with an original Winchester barrel or an accurate replica, the gaposis would be considerable and the rifle would lose its aura of nostalgia (to me, at least) for the old postwar wildcat varminting craze.  There is one small, disquieting possibility — considering that Nagel’s customer was likely a varmint shooter. There was a lot of that in San Antone in the late Forties and Fifties. Still is.  What if this rifle was originally a factory Hornet, which would have explained the change of bolt – remember the wierd case pusher on Model 70 Hornet bolts?  Probably not, but the notiion would turn my Serious Collector friends’ blood cold.  

You raise a perfectly good possible explanation for the uninscribed floorplate.  As I wrote, I’ve read replaciing an ’06 magazine box with the one Winchester manufactured for shorter cartridges, along with shorter follower assembly, required replacement of the floorplate – although I don’t know why that would be required. The magazine box is definitely shorter than the one on my 1950 ’06 Supergrade and the bolt throw as well, indicating a replacement bollt stop. But why the floorplate would need to be replaced escapes me so far.  Surely someone on this site will know, one way or the other.  If it wasn’t necessary, I’d say your answer is likely the right one. 

Thanks for taking time to help!  Bill 

Lou, thanks much.  I’ve just finished cleaning the bore and used a  little J.B. compound to see what’s what.  I haven’t hooked up my bore scope yet but as soon as I get the scope and stock off later this week, so it can go in for a chamber cast, I’ll get some bore images. It looks o.k. to the naked eye but that doesn’t tell us much.  Cross; your fingers.  I am comforted that whoever put this piece away used a fair whack of good old R.I.G. – I’ve had a time getting it out of the chamber but that’s o.k.  I didn’t measure the twist rate because my cleaning rods are too short for this barrel! I’m hoping for 1-12 but expect 1-14, given the era of the Varminter.  Old German gunsmiths in San Antone had their own ideas.  Topperwein’s was a contemporary competitor to Nagel’s, by the way. 

I agree with you about the rifle”s provenance.  While I had it on the bench in good light, I took some more photos and, sure as a cap shootin’ gun, the inletting for the tang is obviously for the tapered version, whereas the receiver is a cloverleaf.  That’s pretty convincing all by itself.  WRA was cranking out Model 70s in the postwar years as fast as it ever could to meet demand. It was pretty hard to believe a 47 type II receiver would have remained in the bin until 1952. The tang inletting nails it.  See the photos below.  

I’ve bought replacement barrel tension screw, escutcheon, and base/nut, which I’m going to slightly modify and install in the forearm hole for cosmetic reasons only.  I’ll need to shorten the screw and countersink the base plate so nothing bears on the barrel.  See the photo.

When I pull the stock, I’ll see what the barrel inletting looks like.  This rifle was obviously built for a shooter and it would not amaze me to see the barrel had been floated. I don’t see any traces of bedding expoxy in the space between the barrel and the forearm, but that’s certainly not definitive.  The inletting is pretty close as the forearm runs out but near the receiver the taper of the barrel shows a little more space. Homer didn’t fill the sight bolster inletting slots.  I realize now I should have photographed the barrel/forearm from top dead center! I’ll do so next session.  

I’ll take your suggestion and see if I can identify some of the small parts, although I’ll have to study up first.  It”s going to take a bit before I get this thing to the range but that’s why I bought it. It hasn’t been a safe queen in its past and it won’t be one in my hands. 

Thanks for all your help. I’ll post as events warrant.  

Bill 

Lou, that’s the second time I’ve heard Winchester never threw anything away that could be used.  The late Herb Houze once told me the same thing, concerning a particular very late production 52C Sporting I was trying to descipher.  

I need to borrow my wife’s steam iron when she’s not looking and find my little bottle of TrueOil, because the various accumulated field marks on the stock are a distraction from its overall feel and appearance of superior quality. They should not be difficult to heal; small dents and rub marks. In my hands it’s really quite handsome and Nagel’s trigger job – on the factory trigger – breaks clean with no creep or overtravel at a hair over two pounds. 

At least for the present, it’s hard to know when the work was done, assuming it was done all at once, although we should be able to say the restocking must have been done no earlier than 1952. 

A chamber cast might give some indication of the other end of the time window: The SAAMI “22-250 Remington” case has a 28 degree shoulder, whereas the most common and popular version of its wildcat predecessors, the Gebby/Wotkins/Smith/Sweany “22 Varminter”, called for the same 26.5 degree shoulder as the parent 250-3000 case, something Phil Sharpe once pointed out in his Complete Guide to Reloading, well before Remington standardized the cartridge in 1965.  If the chamber cast should indicate a 28 degree shoulder and consequent neck length, chances are this rifle was built in or after 1965 when factory ammunition was available. In 1965 Homer Nagel was only 58 years old and could well have still been an active gunsmith. His obituary indicates he died much later, in 1986 “after a brief illness.” 

If the chamber cast indicates a shoulder angle different than 28 degrees (the various wildcats varied from 26 to 30), it is likely the work was done before 1965.  Homer’s caliber inscription is just “22-250” — Gebby had copyrighted the “Varminter” name so its absence is unsurprising. Because Homer was meticulous, if factory ammunition had been available at the time he marked this barrel, perhaps he would have added “Rem” to indicate the chamber was for the factory stuff?  Unfortunately, I just don’t know enough about his other work to say.  

My time would be better spent removing the stock from the barreled action, instead of speculating….

This topic has gotten lengthy and, as the loading and shooting of this rifle progresses, I’ll start a new topic in the appropriate area of our forum.  However, while researching the pre-Remington wildcat version(s) of the 22-250 cartridge, for one of which this rifle is presently chambered, I’ve learned there is not complete agreement among present day gunwriters about the Gebby 22-250 Varminter, the most common and prolific version of the 22-250, before it became a SAAMI-recognized factory cartridge in 1965. For the benefit of anyone sufficiently OCD to be interested, I thought I’d add what I’ve found so far to this thread:

J. E. Gebby drew up the Varminter, with the assistance of J. Bushnell Smith and maybe others, around 1937. Gebby applied for and got a U. S. Trademark for the name, “22 Varminter”.  All agree the parent case is the Savage 250-3000. The disagreement is whether the Varminter had the same shoulder angle as its parent case – 26 degrees 30 minutes – or was altered to 28 degrees by Gebby as part of his quest to protect his design.  Of course, when Remington submitted the “22-250 Remington” cartridge to SAAMI circa 1965, the Remington case wore a 28 degree shoulder angle.  Some say this was new; some say Remington adoped Gebby’s specs. 

The late Philip B. Sharpe has been quoted, accurately or otherwise, as having written in some edition of his Complete Guide to Handloading that Gebby was wise to have retained the 26.5 degree shoulder angle of the parent 250-3000 case.  The original 1937 edition of Sharpe’s book contains no such quote I can find, likely because the book was published in advance of Gebby’s marketing the Varminter. I’ve ordered a couple of used copies of later editions to see, which won’t be here for a couple of weeks.  

Contrarywise, in the 1950 edition of Roy Dunlap’s masterwork, Gunsmithing, on page 62, there is a detailed schematic of the “22-250” cartridge, which very clearly shows a 28 degree shoulder angle.  Roy did not fall off a turnip truck. By most accounts, his book was The Word for gunsmiths for many years.  I’ve attached images of page 62 from my personal, reprinted copy of the 1950 edition.  If Roy illustrated it in 1950 – 15 years before the SAAMI factory cartridge was a gleam in Remington’s eye, I’m inclined to doubt the assertion the Gebby Varminter was designed with a 26.5 degree shoulder. 

To that evidence of a de facto standard from the time of Gebby’s introduction of the Varminter until 1965, I would add the fact Browning was confident enough in 1963 to chamber its High Power sporting rifle (in this case, the one built by Fabrique Nationale on a SAKO medium action) for a “22-250” cartridge, well before any SAAMI recognized, factory ammunition had even been announced, much less produced. 

Finally, a comparison of the design dimensions of the “22-250” illustrated by Dunlap in 1950, with the SAAMI dimensions of the “22-250 Remington” cartridge (image attached), compel the conclusion that Remington saw no reason to alter Gebby’s design and did not do so in any material respect. 

I still have to get a chamber cast, of course, but since the re-barreling of this Model 70 most likely occurred no earlier than 1952 (per the style of the post-1951, oval tang Super Grade stock fitted to its 1947 cloverleaf tang action), I’m now more hopeful the chamber will accomodate current factory ammunition.  Which would do much to stop the bleeding…. 

Clarence,  Thank you once again for helping me through the swamp.  That confirms my suspicion Sharpe was misquoted in the particular Shooting Times article I’d turned up, dated August 20, 2018, written by one Allan Jones, titled .22-250 Remington: One of the Best for Varmint Hunting:

“The history of this cartridge in its wildcat days is cluttered with conflicting information. Many experimenters in those days were working with the .250 Savage case. Some of the best information I found is almost contemporaneous to the cartridge. Phillip B. Sharpe’s classic Complete Guide to Handloading
was first printed in 1937, and Sharpe later added supplemental sections. J.E. Gebby developed the version he called the “22 Varminter.” Other references suggest Gebby’s final version appeared close to Sharpe’s first printing.”

“Sharpe is very complimentary of Gebby’s diligent attention to detail in the development of the cartridge. He says Gebby retained the .250 Savage’s 26 degrees, 30 minutes shoulder angle, considered fairly steep in that era. However, what drove me to drag out my well-worn copy of Sharpe’s treatise was velocity….”

Being a devotee of Abe Books, I ordered good copies of the ’41 and ’52 editions of Sharpe’s book to go with a free digital copy of the ’37 edition I’d downloaded. They are coming on the low and slow so I wouldn’t have seen them until well into October.  I’ll be happy to have them in my library anyway but many thanks for taking time to read my post and definitively resolving the question. 

Chuck,  Thanks much for the additional information; it really helps me keep this project moving along.  

After you and Clarence gave me the lowdown on Sharpe, I was moved (finally) to pull Wolfe’s reprint of Townsend Whelen’s 19340 book, The Hunting Rifle, and O’Connor’s 1970 Outdoor Life book of the same title. Both discuss Gebby’s 22-250 Varminter and mention the difference in shoulder angle between the Varminter and its parent case.  I should have looked on my own bookshelf. 

You guys are better than a library!  If a cast of this Model 70’s barrel chamber matches Gebby’s and Remington’s design — and I now think the odds are good that it will — I’ll be able to avoid the considerable pain of a custom die set. Miller time. 

It can’t be more intimidating than the Bankruptcy Code. I’d assume it’s out of print but available in the used market? 

Update: just Googled the title and it looks readily available. I’ll place an order.  Was Ness a contemporary of Dr.  Mann?