Did any of you ever have any luck with the old Winchester 100 semi-autos?

Still own one?

Reloader

Yes, I still have two (284 Win & 308 Win), great shooting rifles. Great rifle when hunting whitetails with hounds.

My Dad had one and my brother inherited it{I got the mod 64!!} he kills a deer every year with it, it is 308.

quote:

Originally posted by Reloader:
Did any of you ever have any luck with the old Winchester 100 semi-autos?

Still own one?

Reloader

Not sure what you mean when you ask if I "had any luck"? The girls never seemed too impressed with my M100, so I guess you could say I never had any luck with them.

On the other hand I have two of them (308) in my safe and one is going to my grandson. My brother has a 308 also. I replaced the extractor on mine a couple of years ago as it would not eject at times. No problems since then.

I have done some accuracy testing (on 6) and have found that if you take out any slop where the receiver fits into the "cup" and lock tite the front screw so it is just snug, they tend to shoot fairly well. Along with the right loads and they will usually shoot inside 2" at 100 yards with a good scope. I found the Hornady 150 Interlock BT to work very well with IMR 4064.

We use them for deer drives with 1-3 or 1-4 power scopes with the scope usually turned down to 1 power. In this way you can keep both eyes open and follow the deer. We also use them on stands where shots are less than 150 yards.

Jim

I've owned several Winchester 100s and still have 2, a 308 Carbine and a 308 rifle that has had the barrel shortened to 17". If you can deal with the trigger, which is anything but crisp, they have been very reliable for me. My cut-down rifle gets used for whitetail herd culling and has probably accounted for around 150+/- deer over the past couple of years. I know that there are lots of people who don't have a good thing to say about Winchester 100s, but the only problems that I have had with them have been getting the 284s to feed. The 284s that I've owned have all been sensitive to the magazine being used, in that some rifle would work with magazines that wouldn't feed at all in other rifles. The best running coyote shooter who I've ever seen used a Winchester 100 in 243.

Jeff

I've owned or worked with them in .308 and .284, but not .243. No problems with feeding, and accuracy was better than any other high power autoloader than a Browning BAR. (NOW, the BAR is the jewel among sporting autoloaders!) Compared to a Remington 740/742/7400 they are much to be preferred.

There was a factory recall ten or so years ago that retrofitted the firing pin.

Killed my very first deer with one, a rifle in .308. Passed it along to my brother in law, and now the nephew uses it on occasion to continue the traditions. I have had mixed emotions because of the lack of reliability which I experienced over the years, and the known problem with the gas pistons. If I had my druthers I'd of had a Mod 88 in .358.