Tony,

While I don’t “specialize” in post-63 Winchesters [or, with my Magpie eye for pretty, shiny things, any narrow category of firearms], I don’t have the aversion to them most of my fellow members seem to evince.  

The short answer to your question is, in my opinion, no;  $3,600 is not a “lot” — by which I think you really mean “too much” — for that particular low production model in its apparent fine condition, in a caliber other than the ubiquitous .30 Gov’t ’06. If the seller is to be believed, only 2800 were made. More significantly, they don’t come up for sale much, at all. 

If you can closely examine one of these full stocked carbines in the flesh, you will see they were built with unusual care for that era of New Haven production.  For reasons I don’t know, the wood, fit and finish are very nice. I don’t know under whose sponsorship they were produced but he must have had sufficient chop to make sure they were handsome. They are now very hard to find. 

By 1968, the Winchester Model 70 being manufactured was vastly improved from the hideous apparitions sprung upon us by McNamara’s Band in 1964. I remember about 1980 being surprised to see my Dad’s Model 70 standard grade 270 he’d bought new in the mid Seventies — it didn’t have a controlled feed action but neither did the Remington 700 BDL nor the Ruger 77 (red pad) that were its principal competitors, and all three were of equal quality, as far as I could see. 

But the “Mannlicher” was a real breath of fresh air that even drew a favorable remark from Jack O’Connor. His young friend, Jim Rikhoff, one-time director of publicity for Winchester and, later, the editor and publisher of Amwell Press, owned one of these rifles. 

There are a few post-63 Winchester arms that are sought-after and collected. This is one of them. Others would include the Model 9422, certain of the high grade Model 101 and Model 23 variants, and the Parker by Winchester side-by-sides.  The Model 21 continued to be made past 1963, albeit as a Custom Shop item. A friend of mine who is an avid Winchester collector owned a cased Grand American for awhile but could never bear to shoot it and sold it in its virginal state to somebody else who lusted for it and was content to fondle it unshot.

I’ve never met any “post ’63 Winchester collectors” but I do know there are a couple of post ’63 Winchesters I’ve been proud to own and others I wouldn’t turn down.  One of my regrets is not buying the brand new Model 70 Mannlicher .243 that Ray Brantley displayed behind glass for several years for $700. I walked past it a hundred times. 

[N.B. When I’ve used the name “Winchester”, I mean either the Commercial Gun Department of Olin Industry’s Winchester-Western Division, or United States Repeating Arms Company, or Browning Arms Company d/b/ a Winchester Guns, inclusively.]

Looks like something out of Planet of The Apes. I find it ugly as sin.

Steven Gabrielli said
Looks like something out of Planet of The Apes. I find it ugly as sin.

  

“One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”   My first centerfire rifle was a carbine — a Remington 600 chambered in 6mm Remington. I’d wanted a Winchester Model 70 Featherweight .243 but they were no longer being made and the $99 price tag for the little Remington sealed the deal.  If it had been available in a full length stock, it wouldn’t have needed the polymer ventilated rib to avoid looking so stubby. 

But stutzen stocks seem to really attract or repel rifle buffs. I like them myself, although only in a short-barreled bolt action carbine, particularly the designs of the late master, Lenard Brownell, who designed the Ruger #1 and 77 stocks for Bill Ruger. To me, my Model 77 RSI .250-3000 Savage is perfectly proportioned and a thing of beauty.  But I know men who wouldn’t trade a busted alarm clock for it. 

In an early edition of the late John Amber’s Gun Digest, I think the 1956 issue, an author named Warren Sipe described his quest for a fast handling deer rifle after failing to get the awkwardly positioned safety of a pet German drilling off safe in time to take a good Whitetail buck in an Eastern Winter. He apparently had gunmaking skills because he started with an 8mm military Mauser and made it into a short, full-stocked carbine that was very handsome and appealing to me.  The Mannlicher-Schoenaur rifles were out of my price range and it wasn’t until the late Seventies that I saw and quickly bought the little Ruger. I killed more deer and Rio Grande turkeys with that little 250 than with anything else. In passing, I’ll say I’ve owned a variety of 243 rifles over the years and none of them recoiled as gently for me than that six pound .250. 

I suppose full stocked rifles are more trouble to build and bed and have less appeal in these days where range time and shooting into the next county seems to be replacing hunting for so many. The full stocked carbine may have reached its apogee when used by European  hunters and guides, where a gun often did duty as an Alpine climbing stock.

If you add up all the pre-64 and post-63 model variations, there is only one with a Mannlicher stock.  I would imagine that is some of the appeal here.  The Mannlicher variation was a fairly low production item.

Anthony said
I can certainly understand the comments, for most collectors, who don’t give give a post 64 rifle the attention, at all.

I can also agree on, the 9422, as they we’re, and are a very nice product if you’re so inclined, also.

I can also understand the investment side of staying with the pre-64 Winchesters, vs. the post-64 Winchesters.

I was wondering if this rifle was correct, as I’m not the one who could verify that or not. The Bolt, being, “in the white”, caught my eye, as I would think it should or would be blued. I just don’t know.

 

Anthony

  

I honestly don’t remember if the bolt on my .308 was, in-the-white, but I very much doubt it.

You guys have sharp eyes. I never noticed the bolt color until you snapped it into focus for me. I can’t tell whether it is truly in the white or chromed. 

Because a late Mannlicher-Schoenauer MCA I once owned featured a chromed bolt handle [see photo], perhaps an early version of the Winchester was finished that way to emulate the former’s styling, although all the images I can turn up on the Web show blued bolts. 

A 1966 Model 70 .243 I kept around for a while as an exemplar had an engine turned bolt body in the white but the bolt handle and shroud were blued — like all the rest I’ve ever seen. 

Not having enough knowledge of the mannlicher style Model 70’s history and variants, if any, I’d not be too quick to call it a non-factory modification, but I’d want to talk to somebody with a complete set of period catalogs. And I’d want a very close look at the bolt!!

FWIW, that .243 is still in the family. Ugly as a blister, it is a bell ringer for accuracy and I once took a decent buck with it in South Texas. The barrel actually qualifies as a medium heavy, although it’s the standard style rifle. Beauty is as beauty does, although I still can’t unsee its impressed checkering and gaped inletting. 

That’s what it looks like to me. All the 1964 -1980 Model 70 bolts I’ve seen are engine turned but I don’t recall any with bright handles.  

Which leads me to wonder if this is not a very excellent refinish. The topcoat on the stock is very low luster compared to the 1966 standard .243 I had but I’m just not knowledgeable enough about late Sixties to early Seventies finishes to say. My 1980 African stock looks about the same, so maybe it’s Jake. 

To be frank, after I first (mercifully, briefly) saw a “new” 1965 Model 70 in 1966, I studiously avoided the brand until the early Nineties when I bought a 9422 for my son and, a little later, a couple of the Olin-Kodensha 101 pigeon grades.  Anything I’ve learned about early post-63 Winchester rifles has come retrospectively, mostly well after 2001.  Before then, Browning, Ruger, and Kimber of Oregon were my main interests in long guns. I actually missed the slow and unsteady revival of Winchester rifles that began in the late Sixties and continued until the 1981 divestiture. 

You were wise to do so. I wasn’t busted flat back then but pretty close; the banking industry had offed itself not long before and all my main squeezes got buried in the rubble. I knew I should have been accumulating some of those little rifles — they looked too good to last — but mortgage payments had to come first. 

TXGunNut said

steve004 said

If you add up all the pre-64 and post-63 model variations, there is only one with a Mannlicher stock.  I would imagine that is some of the appeal here.  The Mannlicher variation was a fairly low production item.

  

I don’t recall seeing one and quite honestly would never be a buyer for this rifle. I did, however, enjoy seeing it as I appreciate the lines of a Mannlicher rifle. The chrome bolt handle seemed somehow appropriate. I studied one made by Ruger(?) a few decades back and the memory has stayed with me. 

 

Mike

  

Mike – 

Yes indeed, Ruger ventured fairly hard into Mannlicher style stock territory.  I think they designated them, “international.”  I’ve seen quite a few based on the M77 as well as the No. 1 single-shot.  In fact, back aways you could get the 10/22 or the .44 autoloader rifle with the Mannlicher style stock.