Winchester M70 Featherweight

Demonical said:
So here's the cringe worthy part; I just ordered a Bell & Carlson LA stock and I'm going to be swapping out the beautiful Featherweight stock for the functional simplicity of fiberglas.

It will be interesting to see the weight difference, walnut vs fiberglas.

As a benefit(?) this preserves the walnut stock in pristine condition and lets me go hunting now without worrying about banging up that wooden stock.
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Did you consider going to a Wildcat Comp Stock at all? It certainly would’ve made more of a Featherweight then the B&C.

I have no issues with B&C stocks, have two on various rigs. I’m wanting to order up a Wildcat in the next few months and really lighten up my R700 Mtn.
 
^ No I didn't but you're certainly correct, the Wildcat Composite stocks are much lighter than the Bell & Carlson. Weight wasn't a factor.

For the record I've got 2 M700's in Wildcat stocks, and I love them.

This had more to do with just being able to basically buy the B&C and 'drop' the action in it. The Wildcats take a bit more tweaking.

I went with the brown w black web colour.



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Silverado said:
I wish I remembered the rings I had for my 70FW. They were blued split rings fitted so perfectly with a cap at the top, they didn't use any screws aside from the bases. They were beautiful, once installed the joints were excellent, you could see them but you had to look.
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Sounds like Conetrol mounts and rings. I have some on a Mod 70 featherweight too. Beautiful rings.
 
Demonical said:
@ Silverao, yes I considered the option of bedding and frigging around... :unsure:
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I was mostly taking a friendly shot about out of the box accuracy. The only one I ever owned was a Savage 116 in a flexi-plastic stock... and the Savage 10FP with the bedding block. Most of the new buys were OK, but accurate was a bedding job and trigger tune up away every time.
 
Demonical said:
^ No I didn't but you're certainly correct, the Wildcat Composite stocks are much lighter than the Bell & Carlson. Weight wasn't a factor.

For the record I've got 2 M700's in Wildcat stocks, and I love them.

This had more to do with just being able to basically buy the B&C and 'drop' the action in it. The Wildcats take a bit more tweaking.

I went with the brown w black web colour.



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Really like that colour combo
 
Demonical said:
I just did something that's sure to make the hardcore guys cringe.

I'm still waiting to shoot the rifle for the first time, because I'm sick and tired of my old Shooting Chrony, which I'm sure reloading type people will relate to. So I'm going to buy a Garmin Xero C1, (next weekend heading to Edmonton).

In the meantime I've watched a few YT vids on people trying to get these M70's to shoot accurately... as beautiful as the M70 Featherweight is, it's no Tikka T3 or Remington M700 out of the box accurate.

Ok so looking at my M70 there's a huge issue with contact of the fore-end on the barrel. I've been down that road before and I know this damn thing is going to have issues with stringing/accuracy etc...

So here's the cringe worthy part; I just ordered a Bell & Carlson LA stock and I'm going to be swapping out the beautiful Featherweight stock for the functional simplicity of fiberglas.

It will be interesting to see the weight difference, walnut vs fiberglas.

As a benefit(?) this preserves the walnut stock in pristine condition and lets me go hunting now without worrying about banging up that wooden stock.
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And therein lies the rub with the model 70 fws. I've purchased 2 because I think they're lovely and nobody does deep, rich bluing like Winchester, but, both had really poor alignment at the forestock and no matter what I tried I couldn't get them to shoot decently without bedding. Down the road they went. I won't buy rifles I assume I'll "have" to bed to make them shoot decently. To dial in sure. Love the Win look. Hate the accuracy. 1.25" groups just don't cut it but I know quite a few 70FW owners and they're fine with it.

The B&C will bump the weight a bit but they're decent stocks considering. Just had a $70 price increase too so you may have got some appreciation.
 
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270AB said:
And therein lies the rub with the model 70 fws. I've purchased 2 because I think they're lovely and nobody does deep, rich bluing like Winchester, but, both had really poor alignment at the forestock and no matter what I tried I couldn't get them to shoot decently without bedding. Down the road they went. I won't buy rifles I assume I'll "have" to bed to make them shoot decently. To dial in sure. Love the Win look. Hate the accuracy. 1.25" groups just don't cut it but I know quite a few 70FW owners and they're fine with it.

The B&C will bump the weight a bit but they're decent stocks considering. Just had a $70 price increase too so you may have got some appreciation.
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I'm more cynical than you, I just assume everything needs massaging, and I like doing it.

In that rifle 1.25" groups don't mean anything to me, that's not how I test them, it's not how I shoot them.
 
Silverado said:
I'm more cynical than you, I just assume everything needs massaging, and I like doing it.

In that rifle 1.25" groups don't mean anything to me, that's not how I test them, it's not how I shoot them.
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To me it means I'm going to like the ones that cloverleaf - .6 a lot more. 1.5 off the bench isn't going to improve when I'm standing in snow at -15c.
 
There was quite a lot of contact between the barrel and the foreend, on the factory walnut.
I bought this Bell & Carlson from Prophet River and just swapped the action into the fiberglas today.
There is a modest 4ozs difference between the wood and the fiberglas.
More important, the barrel is now free floated, without having to frig around.
It's NOT glass bedded at this time, but that might happen.
It'll depend entirely on how I do trying to develope handloads for this rifle.
 

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AlbertaJohn said:
So what kind of accuracy can you expect with the new featherweights?
I'm talking right out of the box with no bedding or anything.
They sure are pretty btw
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Depends how lucky you get. I have 2. They shoot moa or better. But I did have a 3ed, in 308 that wouldn't shoot 150s or 165s no matter what tried. Down the road it went. And to think I sold a wonderfully accurate x bolt to get the winchester.....
 
^ Off the top of my head, and just based on a number of YT videos I've seen, I'm hoping to get 1.5" group or less?
But I won't be surprised if it's worse.

Edit: One thing I forgot mention, the factory walnut stock was glass bedded. Which I didn't expect, but it was nowhere close to being free floated, in fact there was heavy contact barrel to foreend.
 
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prairie lover said:
Depends how lucky you get. I have 2. They shoot moa or better. But I did have a 3ed, in 308 that wouldn't shoot 150s or 165s no matter what tried. Down the road it went. And to think I sold a wonderfully accurate x bolt to get the winchester.....
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my experience was just the opposite. I’ve sighted in a bunch of x-bolts, and didn’t called any of them great…not terrible, but not great…. I have a model 70 featherweight, and a friend has a sporter… both shoot better than the x-bolts I’ve shot
 
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