Having some [professional] expertise on violations of the 7th Commandment,  I'm qualified to opine Chesty's autographed photo does not meet the evidentiary standard of proof, UNLESS:

A.  The autograph includes your Dad's name and expresses gratitude. [As long as the dedication doesn't spell out dinner and a romantic interlude,  it can be countered that his contribution was merely a referral to a colleague practicing plastic surgery.]

OR

B.  He appears in the photograph. [In legal jargon, this is "Very Bad; We're Cooked.]

Good point...  I know that in the December 1950 Component Parts catalog M70 barrels were marked with a **, which referenced the note "** Totally restricted - Not shipped from factory as separate items, factory installation required."  That would suggest that they weren't using the mail order proof on barrels you couldn't buy through the mail... 

Perhaps the distinction was between rifle barrels (requiring headspace adjustment) and shotgun barrels???

Cheers,

Lou

In reference to M70s, I have to draw information from Roger Rule's book, as I am unaware of any factory document(s) spelling out the process in detail.  Rule did have the opportunity to interview several of the former employees involved in manufacturing M70s, so I presume that what he wrote jives with first hand accounts.

According to Roger the sequence was:

Gun Assembly Area:  Barrels were attached to receivers, bolts assembled, final headspace adjusted, trigger/sear honed and installed, stocks, and misc parts (sights) installed.  In the barrel shop the chambers were left slightly short.  Headspace was adjusted during Assembly using Go No-Go gauges and a burnishing reamer.  The Assemblers worked from a "Basic Nomenclature List" to ensure all the right parts went into each Catalog Symbol.  After assembly the completed guns were inspected and either passed or returned for rework.

Gallery:  Guns that passed inspection went to the gallery.  Don't ask me where within the sprawling New Haven plant the gallery was located.  I do not know.  First they were proof tested with a 70,000 psi charge, after which the WP proofs were added to receiver and barrel.  Rifles then went to a "function-firing" station where regular ammunition was loaded into the magazine and feed/fire/extract/eject were checked.  At this point an inspector added etched the bolt serial number using an electropencil.  After function-firing, rifles went to a target point and were sighted in.  

Final Inspection:  Rifles were "completely disassembled" (I don't know what Rule meant by "complete") and everything inspected again.  Once passed, they were oiled and sent to the Packing Room...

I have no basis on which to dispute any of this... Proof testing was performed on fully finished/assembled M70s before function testing and sighting in... 

Note that this is different from the earlier (pre-1932) practice of "Violent (or Veritas) Proof" testing, which was done on Nickel Steel barrels and indicated by the "oval VP" stamp under the barrel.  The "VP" proof was done to barrels after they were bored but before they were rifled/chambered/straightened.  It was done in a fixture, not on a complete gun.  The VP step was discontinued at the time CMS (Winchester Proof Steel) replaced Nickel Steel in barrels, as the CMS barrels didn't need to be tested for strength.  A very few M70s do have the "oval VP" stamp under the barrel, but these are '32 or '33 date CMS barrels originally made for M54s.  Here's an example of the "oval VP" on a M70 250-3000 Savage carbine barrel dated '32.

Hope this helps...

BTW... I don't know about Bubbles LaTour and her Nash Rambler, but when going through some of my Dad's stuff a couple months ago I found a genuine AUTOGRAPHED nude publicity photo of "Chesty" Morgan.  Impressive...  I'd post it here, but it would make Bert blush and he'd have to take it down for propriety's sake!!! 

Lou

Where and when did the actual proof firing occur?

Bert H. said
Both times our MAGA El Presidente was elected, guns and ammo prices fell dramatically, including collectable firearms. Not sure why that was the case, but it certainly happened.
Bert
  

Exactly, that’s precisely my point.  Right after the Election of 2024 almost everything, if not everything, in the firearms collecting community dropped 10 to 33%.  This hitting particularly hard the 75 to 95% range stuff particularly hard.  More resilient was the restored stuff, there never seemed to be much of a market for that stuff and now there is.  Folks who are more interested in aesthetics over originality.

Bert

Perhaps I made back my loss on that 1886 with this one, but maybe not.  Perhaps it is only a $2500 firearm, or at least was in March 2025 when purchased off of Gunbroker.

https://winchestercollector.org/forum/winchester-swap-meet/model-1894-and-one-model-1892-house-cleaning/#p160179

steve004 said
Bert and Bob -
I agree with you and found your comments reassuring.  However, I think Ian is on to something as, like he has, I've observed some market price drops that seem like a trend.  Maybe not.  I hope they are just anomalies.  
  

I hope so as well, but it seems to be a trend.  I’ll use this rifle as an example.  Multiple folks thought the $5800 price to be fair, it’s an 85% rifle, I negotiated down a bit from the asking price.  This was about a year and a half ago.  I found something I liked better, and decided to let this one go, thinking, at auction, it would do quite well and I might make perhaps 10% on it as I negotiated my terms downward as to what I might have to pay.  

https://winchestercollector.org/forum/winchester-swap-meet/886-ex-lt-c-1909-for-sale/

Morphy’s is a well respected auction house, but I probably should have let it go at Rock Island.  The key points here are I bought it before the Election of 2024 and sold it after the election, when this sort of stuff tumbled 10 to 33%.  If I had known how poorly it would fare, I never would have gotten rid of it.  I didn’t dislike it, just thought it would do well, thinking $7500 at auction wasn’t a stretch.

And here’s how it fared:

https://auctions.morphyauctions.com/_C__HIGH_CONDITION_WINCHESTER_MODEL_1886_EXTRA_LIG-LOT628826.aspx

I get it this is one example, but  I’ve found other such examples and this rifle shouldn’t have fared so poorly.

I agree with you and found your comments reassuring.  However, I think Ian is on to something as, like he has, I've observed some market price drops that seem like a trend.  Maybe not.  I hope they are just anomalies.  

Bob

mrcvs said
Hands down, you are better off with a pristine piece, 98 to 100%, except when you have doubters who believe that it might be refinished.  85 to 97% used to be a good place to be, but not anymore.  I think there’s a stronger demand, and possible valuation on a refinished piece than something in the 75 to 95 or 97% range, as long as well done and in the lower percentages of this range.
  

I disagree.  In my personal opinion, Winchester firearms that are in the 80 - 95% condition range will always be very desirable collector's pieces, and very easy to sell without losing any money on them.  There are simply way too many of the guns in the alleged 96 - 100% range that are not what they are advertised to be.  I will stick to buying guns that wear their age appropriately.

Bert

I guess sometimes "stuff" (excrement) happens...

As for barrel markings, M70 barrels were polished three (!!!) times with successively finer grit AFTER the exposed roll marks were applied.  This usually removed any/all "cratering" of the steel from the die application.  Proofs were applied to finished (blued) barrels, hence there shouldn't be blue finish in the proof marks and they shouldn't be polished over.

Best,

Lou

mrcvs said
Hands down, you are better off with a pristine piece, 98 to 100%, except when you have doubters who believe that it might be refinished.  85 to 97% used to be a good place to be, but not anymore.  I think there’s a stronger demand, and possible valuation on a refinished piece than something in the 75 to 95 or 97% range, as long as well done and in the lower percentages of this range.
  

I too, have seen evidence of trends in this direction.  This doesn't fit well with me, finding that the place I am in, is no longer that, "good place to be."  Even though many of my pieces may be worth less than they used to be worth, I don't like them any less.  And I'm not going to switch to refinished or restored rifles.  

While my focus is on original pieces, I do see an enormous distinction between a poor restoration (such as the topic rifle of this thread) vs. a top notch restoration such as Wyoming Armory or Turnbull turns out. In fact, anything short of a Wyoming Armory or Turnbull quality restoration, is in my book, a "poor restoration." Top restored pieces can sell for big dollars, but that doesn't mean the sellers are making money on them.  The cost of a quality restoration easily takes my breath away.  

It probably means the barrels were milled, cut to length, rifled, threaded, chambered, polished - and then fitted temporarily to some sort of universal receiver that could be triggered from behind a wall, then fired for proof and stamped. 

You wouldn't proof-stamp before polishing. Or roll-mark either, I would think. From what i have seen, most models' barrels were blued after proof-stamping. For some reason, the Model 71 barrels' proof marks appear to have been applied through the bluing. [Bert H. has published substantial evidence of this, although some dispute it. I don't. ]

Which begs the question when were the barrels of completed rifles proofed?  It's hard to imagine separate and different steps and sequences.