Model 70 action question?|Page 2|Winchester Rifles|Forum|Winchester Collector

Hi Clarence-

I suspect you’re right, they were being as “gentle” with the VO as I am with all mine…  It would take a fair amount of “authority” to close many of them (including that one)…   As you know, those extractors, even though they are a leaf spring, have very little “flex” in the short distance between the extractor collar (fulcrum) and extractor lip. 

Ned’s bolt face photos are really nice to see in this regard.  IIRC all those rifles (Olympic and Free Rifle) are all 308 WIN, but you can see that the amount of extractor “bite”, hence degree to which the extractor lip would have to move to slip over a cartridge rim, is dependent on how much the lip was allowed to hang over the bolt face recess.  Since pre-64 M70s rifles were all assembled by hand, there’s bound to be some variability and I do not know whether loading a sixth cartridge was/was not part of the routine function testing, as opposed to just testing whether cartridges fed smoothly from the magazine.

Interestingly, the later (1950s) Instruction Manual contains the same instruction, only it even includes a photo showing the shooter holding down the cartridges in the magazine with the left hand while pushing the sixth cartridge forward with the bolt as Tim described.

Cheers,

Lou

P.S.  Since I think we’ve resolved TR’s issue, I’m attaching (totally gratuitous and off-topic) a couple more clips from A.A. Arnold’s drawings showing the process for attaching the extractor to the bolt body and getting the firing pin onto the bolt sleeve/striker assembly.  Note the “specialized” pliers and bench fixture for compressing the firing pin spring.  Last pic is of those two tools (actual M70 factory assembler’s tools from the late 1940s or early 1950s).  Not exactly “precision instruments”!!!