Question for you gents:

someone asked me and I don't know: the Model 70 classic has one size receiver. in the 30 06 guise there is a spacer behind the mag. if one has a new stock made for the rifle would the new stock include this spacer or would it be built to accomodate only the length of the mag?

I don't know what they are doing now, but the classic models from a few years ago came in two sizes. Long and Short actions.

The long action was for every thing from 30-06 length (including belted mag like 300 Win Mag and 7mm Rem Mag) and your are correct, there is a spacer in the rear of the magazine for these cartridges.

The short action was used for all the 308 Win length and shorter, including the WSMs.

There was a variation on the long action where they opened up the loading/ejection port to the rear, moved the bolt stop back, and removed the spacer from the magazines. This variation was known as the Express action. They chambered cartridges like 375 H&H, 416 Rem Mag, 7mm STW, etc in the express action.

So to answer your question. A stock made for a long action will fit any long action, including the express action. The length of the magazines, with or with out the internal spacer is the same. The only exception to this might be the few M70 that were made for Rem Ultra mags. These magazines might be a bit wider than the magazines for other cartridges. The stock could be made to work with a little extra work.

The older model 70's actually came in 3 different action lengths. WSSM, short, and long.

As far as your question about the magazine box goes is that the spacer is inside the magazine box so that the cutout for it is the same whether it's a Ultra-mag, Magnum or 30-06 length. The 30-06 length mag boxes have spacers in them, the Magnums usually don't and the Ultra-Mags and triangular cutouts on the sides to give the wider shoulders room to space and feed correctly.

As far as stock inletting goes the long actions are the same except for the barrel channels, and the cartridge shelf. On the long magnums the rear bridge is narrower and the cartridge shelf should be cut to match it.
The WSSM length actions were pretty rare and only used for the "Super Short" mags. The WSM's were built with std short actions with magnum boltfaces.

The Pre-64 actions were different they were all the same length and they milled out the front of the action to accommodate the 300 H&H length rounds and used spacers for the short action rounds like 308 etc.. The 22 Hornets had a particularly interesting magazine box in the Pre-64's...........................DJ