Hi Clarence-

Do you mean like the post-63 M70 target rifles?  Do you have a serial number or a photo?

Like you, my initial reaction would be NO… The National Match was last cataloged in 1959 (so missing from the 1960-63 catalogs).  I happen to have a very late National Match with a 1961 serial number (S/N 506314) that appears to me to be all correct (clip slot receiver, NM ramped barrel, etc).  That suggests to me that a few may have been built up even after they were dropped (to get rid of NM barrels and stocks???).  It has the regular checkered steel marksman butt plate.

Best,

Lou

Hi Clarence-

I don’t keep post-63 M70 photos, but scrounging the internet a little I’ll try to illustrate the post-63 butt pads.

First, this is a pretty nice PRE-64 National Match rifle from 1953 (S/N 255001).  Note the standard weight barrel with low integral front sight ramp.  Stock is typical Marksman with checkered metal butt only the stock is inlet for the standard barrel contour:

Below are a couple of internet photos of POST-63 M70 target rifles.  The barrels are straight taper medium heavy contour (like the pre-64 targets).  The actions are post-63 (no Mauser type extractor) and the S/Ns would be >700,000.  Resolution’s not great I think you can get a sense of the butt pads the factory put on these.  They are actually rubber pads (not plastic) with white line spacers.  I suspect they were made for Winchester by Pachmayr, who made the ventilated white line pads the factory put on late pre-64 hunting rifles like the 300 WIN MAGNUMs:

A serial number from the gun you looked at would probably clear things up.  Hope this helps… 

Lou

Hi Clarence-

The conventional wisdom (Roger’s book) says that there were 581,471 pre-64 M70 receivers made in regular production.  My understanding is that the factory made the jump to 700,000 when they went to the post-63 design (so there aren’t any M70 receivers numbered between 581,472 and 699,999). 

After the GCA68 passed, of course, Winchester serial numbers had the “G” prefix added, but before that the numbers were just numbers. 

Best,

Lou