While I favor the vintage and traditional, I do see one major safety advantage:  the unloading of the rifle.  There is no way to unload the magazine of a traditional lever action rifle other than cycling each round through the action - and each time this occurs, the rifle is in full readiness to discharge.  That is, the hammer is fully cocked and ready to fire through each cycle.  There is great need to keep the rifle pointed in a safe direction when doing this. 

This unloading process often carries some nuisance.  You can't catch the cartridges as they're ejected.  You typically eject them on to the ground, where they don't fall all together in a neat little pile.  Sometimes that ground you are ejecting them into is snow.  Sometimes deep snow.  

I've seen examples where hunters wait until they return to their car to do the unloading. They open their car door and eject them on to the car seat (or at least try to).  When I've observed this, I've noted more concentration on getting the right angle for the cartridges to go where they want them to go vs. where they have the muzzle pointed.  Hence, I can see great merit in a crossbolt of tang safety.

Thoughts, opinions, experiences?

Zebulon said
I like the IER setup. Are you sure it was made in 64? The finish on the receiver doesn't look like black chrome. 
  

Bill -

The scope is a Leupold long eye relief scope.  It is very fast with sight acquisition.  One of the things I like about it is the shooter can simultaneously see through the scope while seeing around the scope.  This of course helps with sight acquisition and maintaining it (e.g. a running animal).

I'm going to cut against the grain again and note that I have had post-64 '94 carbines made in the 1970's (e.g. .44 magnum carbines) - and the receiver finish was miserable compared to this one.  My carbine is in the low 2,700,000 range.

Bert provides some nice details in this thread:

https://winchestercollector.org/forum/winchester-rifles/late-1963-vs-1964-quality-of-winchester-94s/

1873man said
They do have a taper but the tolerances are fairly wide but its could be a outside chance it would show what happened. Just like the barrel diameter tolerance the front sight placement has a tolerance. I've been seeing .725" to .790" from the muzzle to the closest cut at the bottom of the dovetail for 2nd and 3rd models. I checked a few first models and a 66 and they are more, .8" plus.  My email is below my picture. 
Bob
  

So I recieved the 1873 I had posted about before with the 18” barrel- Cody says it was shipped with 44 other rifles all having 26” barrels and set triggers - I posted pics in other post of trigger as it doesn’t look like set trigger to me - here’s measurements I have - length 18 1/8 - muzzle to sight - .76 - muzzle to magazine band 3.95- muzzle diameter octagon - .78- forearm 8 1/2” - second model rifle - could Cody be wrong ?

I don't know why you are concerned about shipping.  Typically, buyers pay shipping. A rifle is not hard to ship. Use USPS Ground Advantage. Get a commercial shipping kit from Cambridge Packaging, Lima, Ohio. Charge the buyer for it. 

You aren't going to sell the rifle for what you want without good photography. If you can't post photos here, you can't post them on Gunbroker. 

If the rifle is in the condition you say, you should be able to get a thousand for it plus shipping but only if people can see and agree. 

I follow the market on pre64 Featherweights pretty closely. The majority of them were made in 30/06 and that is not a detriment. The Featherweight sells better than the Standard these days, in the common calibers. People still like the '06 and, unlike the barn burners, don't worry about a washed out bore.in a used rifle. 

I just bought a 1960 Featherweight 30/06 on Gunbroker. You can look it over anrd compare yours. Item # 1187977819. It hammered fot $981 after 24 bids. By the time the fees and taxes were added in, the tab was $1153.

Note that it has a newish Pachmayr Whiteline  pad, so don't let anybody low rate your gun if yours has one. An '06 Featherweight with full house 180 grain hunting ammunition will.kill anything that walks in America if you can shoot straight. It will also give most hunters a raging flinch without a pad. 

Parting it out and selling it piece by piece is a hell of a lot of work. As well as destroying a nice gun. I have never intentionally done it but a parts dealer was high bidder on a my 1951 standard grade 270 with Stith Streamline mount and Weaver K3. It barely made a thousand because it was a 75% gun. I owned and hunted with the gun for a Decade but lost money when you add in the scope and mount I bought separately. Lesson learned; Don't sell a good scope with an average rifle. Doesn't help. 

Louis Luttrell said
Hi Aaron-
Congrats on a very nice Model 70.  That's one to be proud of and hang onto for Generations.
To answer your question.  Model 70s did not have factory drilled holes on the bridge until 1946.  So the (probably just one) hole in the bridge for the rear of the Redfield JR mount was added.  The other holes, two atop the front receiver ring and two on the left side rear for a receiver sight, were factory.  Your rifle was originally a G7003C (Standard rifle, 270 WCF, Winchester 22G Sporting type rear sight).  So the only other "alteration" is that the rear sight was removed from the barrel to allow clearance for the scope's objective bell.  As best I can tell, everything else, including wood and metal finishes, is original and correct.
The scope is a 4X Unertl Hawk and it's in period Redfield rings. Those scopes date to about the late (post-WWII) 1940s or 50s.  Your Grandfather certainly knew quality, as that scope was about the best available at the time.
For comparison, the one pictured below is also a 1936 vintage Model 70 Standard rifle (s/n 1099).  It's a 30 GOV'T'06 but otherwise looks like yours.  It has the type of rear sight that was removed from yours.

Hope this helps,
Lou
  

Thank you, Lou! That’s extremely helpful and I really appreciate the kind words about my grandfather.

Congrats on a very nice Model 70.  That's one to be proud of and hang onto for Generations.

To answer your question.  Model 70s did not have factory drilled holes on the bridge until 1946.  So the (probably just one) hole in the bridge for the rear of the Redfield JR mount was added.  The other holes, two atop the front receiver ring and two on the left side rear for a receiver sight, were factory.  Your rifle was originally a G7003C (Standard rifle, 270 WCF, Winchester 22G Sporting type rear sight).  So the only other "alteration" is that the rear sight was removed from the barrel to allow clearance for the scope's objective bell.  As best I can tell, everything else, including wood and metal finishes, is original and correct.

The scope is a 4X Unertl Hawk and it's in period Redfield rings. Those scopes date to about the late (post-WWII) 1940s or 50s.  Your Grandfather certainly knew quality, as that scope was about the best available at the time.

For comparison, the one pictured below is also a 1936 vintage Model 70 Standard rifle (s/n 1099).  It's a 30 GOV'T'06 but otherwise looks like yours.  It has the type of rear sight that was removed from yours.

Hope this helps,

Lou

DEEREHART said
Aaron
 Ill comment on a couple of things i see until our experts roll along
 First and foremost (In my opinion), Do NOT do a thing to this rifle except wipe it down gently and shoot it at every opportunity including take it out and hunt it. You only get a couple of chances to own something that was your grandfathers. He obviously shot the rifle a fair amount. Truly a wonderful heirloom.
That being said the rear bridge has been drilled and tapped for the scope install. Many of them were and some of us feel that it was a shortcoming of Winchester to not do it on all of the early model 70s.
 Maybe the finish has been touched up a bit. this would be normal for a rifle that was hunted here in the Northwest.
 All in all a very nice piece. Please enjoy and respect it for what it is.
 Doug
  

Thank you, Doug. That’s certainly my plan, keep it clean and shoot it when I can. Appreciate the insight. 

Anybody have one?

Mike

 Ill comment on a couple of things i see until our experts roll along

 First and foremost (In my opinion), Do NOT do a thing to this rifle except wipe it down gently and shoot it at every opportunity including take it out and hunt it. You only get a couple of chances to own something that was your grandfathers. He obviously shot the rifle a fair amount. Truly a wonderful heirloom.

That being said the rear bridge has been drilled and tapped for the scope install. Many of them were and some of us feel that it was a shortcoming of Winchester to not do it on all of the early model 70s.

 Maybe the finish has been touched up a bit. this would be normal for a rifle that was hunted here in the Northwest.

 All in all a very nice piece. Please enjoy and respect it for what it is.

 Doug