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Just bought this beauty, but can´t identify if it´s a national match, I’ve tried contacted winchester but they only have the manufacturing date of 1946 which some people have defferred on that.
Hope someone mught be able to help
Model 70 s/n 54540 was actually manufactured in late November 1945. Lou or Steve can tell to more about the identity of the rifle.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
National Match rifles do not a a slotted front sight base for a hood. Simply remove the front sight to check. I can’t see the stock well enough to determine if it is a National Match stock. The National Match Style Target stock was not checkered for regular production.
November 5, 2014
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Hi Asparagus-
Your Model 70 is a National Match rifle. The barrel is what defines it. The National Match was built using a 24″ standard contour barrel with a unique low front sight ramp that is not grooved on the sides to accept a sight hood and drilled for a barrel mounted scope block forward of the rear sight boss. The rifle would have originally had a pair of telescope sight bases; one on the barrel 0.470″ tall, and the other on the front receiver ring 0.185″ tall. Similar to this one (s/n 41035)…
The front sight is a Lyman 77R globe installed using an AK height cross dovetail block. This was the factory sight. The receiver sight is probably not original, as it is an early (circa 1947-49) “half block” Lyman 48WJS with the flat return spring on the left side. The factory sight would have been a Lyman 48WH, which looks the same except for a 0.100″ “step-up” in the cross bar. Is the stock inlet (square cut-out) for a “full block” receiver sight?
Your rifle appears to have a modified Winchester Marksman stock. It does have the hand stop adjustment rail in the bottom of the fore end, but I believe that the fore end has been slimmed down somewhat (the usual Marksman fore end is about 2 3/8″ wide) with added checkering. Such modifications were quite common on target rifles. Marksman stocks were not regularly checkered, although checkering could be ordered. When they were checkered it typically looked like this (s/n 162446)…
It seems to me that Type I (pre-war receiver) National Match rifles are quite uncommon. I’ve only found a handful of them in the survey.
Best,
Lou
WACA 9519; Studying Pre-64 Model 70 Winchesters
Online
Louis Luttrell said
Hi Asparagus-Your Model 70 is a National Match rifle. The barrel is what defines it. The National Match was built using a 24″ standard contour barrel with a unique low front sight ramp that is not grooved on the sides to accept a sight hood and drilled for a barrel mounted scope block forward of the rear sight boss. The rifle would have originally had a pair of telescope sight bases; one on the barrel 0.470″ tall, and the other on the front receiver right 0.185″ tall. Similar to this one (s/n 41035)…
The front sight is a Lyman 77R globe installed using an AK height cross dovetail block. This was the factory sight. The receiver sight is probably not original, as it is an early (circa 1947-49) “half block” Lyman 48WJS with the flat return spring on the left side. The factory sight would have been a Lyman 48WH, which looks the same except for a 0.100″ “step-up” in the cross bar. Is the stock inlet (square cut-out) for a “full block” receiver sight?
Your rifle appears to have a modified Winchester Marksman stock. It does have the hand stop adjustment rail in the bottom of the fore end, but I believe that the fore end has been slimmed down somewhat (the usual Marksman fore end is about 2 3/8″ wide) with added checkering. Such modifications were quite common on target rifles. Marksman stocks were not regularly checkered, although checkering could be ordered. When they were checkered it typically looked like this (s/n 162446)…
It seems to me that Type I (pre-war receiver) National Match rifles are quite uncommon. I’ve only found a handful of them in the survey.
Best,
Lou
Amazing info, I wasn´t able to get such a detailed analysis. seems I was able to get a hold of a nice rifle!
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