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Were all the stocks on pre 64 Featherweight stocks checkered?Was looking at a picture of one today, that did not have a checkered stock.From what I understand, it was made in the last year of the pre 64 era,1963.
All pre64 FWT stocks were checkered
If you can’t convince them, confuse them
November 5, 2014
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Hi 28 gauge-
As Ted said, all pre-64 M70 Featherweight stocks were checkered. All lack the hole in the underside of the fore arm used for the barrel bedding screw on standard contour barrels, and most have holes drilled beneath the butt plate (ostensibly to save weight). Of course they are all inlet for the Featherweigght barrel contour. That said, the Featherweight stocks were made in three “flavors” depending on period of manufacture:
(1952 – roughly 1958): Hand checkered, aluminum butt plate. Both low comb and Monte Carlo.
(roughly 1958 – roughly 1961): Hand checkered, plastic butt plate. Nearly all, if not all, Monte Carlo comb.
(roughly 1961 – 1963): Narrow panel machine cut checkering, plastic butt plate. All Monte Carlo.
The exception is the 264 WIN MAGNUM Featherweight Westerner (1962-1963). These all had the Monte Carlo stock with machine checkering, but came with a factory installed ventilated red Winchester recoil pad.
These period differences can help identify rifles with replaced stocks.
Best,
Lou
WACA 9519; Studying Pre-64 Model 70 Winchesters
Well said, Lou and the photos are worth a thousand words.
I would add something that is more apparent when the machine checkered rifles are actually in hand to examine.:
In order to accommodate the inability of Winchester’s then new cbeckering machines to follow more than a very slightly radiused contour, the shapes of the Model 70 pistol grip and forearm were noticeably flattened, both on the standard and Featherweight stocks.
To my eye, it was this flattening that made those end-of-the-bolt versions of the rifle less graceful and more awkward looking, rather than the diminished checkering panels, although the latter didn’t help.
The difference is more apparent in both feel and appearance, particularly at the forearm, when shouldering the earlier and then the final version of the stock.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
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