Hi all-

Was at the local smoke pole shop, looking at a new Win m70 supergrade in 300 Win mag. I know the supergrade is supposed to be a little better than normal, nice wood and better fit but does anyone here know if they are real shooters? This particular rifle has the nicest wood I have seen on a non full custom gun ever, lots of dark "swirl" and fiddleback. Better than the $2200 wood upgrade on my fathers Kreighoff K-80. (IMHO). Would love to buy it but if it isn't a shooter it would need top be rebarreled and at a purchase price of $860 that is more than I want to spend.

Thanks

Andrew

Thats still a good price for a supergrade. As far as being a shooter. Maybe. They say they handpick a barrel and all. But I have seen the shadows that shoots one hole and others that won't.

I have never owned a Win. Always been a Ruger guy, I know what I am getting with that! This rifle is to be the first in the endevor to replace my guns. I had to sell the others off due to the economy but things are better and I would like to keep things to the nicer end of the spectrum for the new battery!!

It seems like everywhere you look a guy is selling a "custom" M700 that will shoot like crazy. There aren't really too many people out there building beautiful walnut and steel guns. The wood on this rifle would make it look like it came from one of these guys! The ones I have seen cost about the same as a small house!

Andrew

The 300wm will do me well enough for the lower 48 and if I am lucky enough to go after the Grizz, I will get a 375 H&H !!

I bought a used M 70 Super Grade Classic with the Boss in 300 WM for $525. The wood like yours is outstanding and the action is quite smooth. It's worth it for the stock and action alone and then some.

I tried to make the rifle a long range varminter with lighter bullets using the Boss. Some groups were so so. I used the Boss part that is not vented.

Then I removed the Boss and shot it with some 165 Sierra SBT's and the groups are quite good with most printing about 1 MOA.

In general these Super Grades are both too heavy and too pretty to carry. That does not mean that they are not desirable. I have had some calls about another like the one I bought but it got away.

The prices on them used in CT run under $600.

A M-70 Winchester Super Grade, in 270 came my way back in 1996. I had CPR do a bedding job on it along with some trigger work and recrowned the barrel. But your question do they shoot? In a word yes, my rifle shot so so before the tune up, and it now shoots very well, well enough to put bullets under a quarter at 200 yards. Buy the rifle, you may have to make some adjustments, but it should shoot well. I would buy another Super Grade in a second, if I could get one in 300 H+H!

I helped my father work out his Super Grade 06 a couple of years back.

The 2 loads he uses are the 125 Nozelr Bt and the 165 Sierra BTHP. Both loads shoot in the .5 area for the most part.

"GET TO THE HILL"

Dogz

Two super grades tried in 300 Win Mag and two so so shooters after lots of work.

I have a Super Grade that started life as a 30-06 and I rechambered it into .300 H&H. It shoots .8 MOA with handloaded 200 grn Partitions.

The supergrades come with better wood, ebony (plastic) forend, recessed sling swivels, and Williams bottom metal. All in all that's a lot of extras for the small price increase over a standard M70 LT. However, the barreled action is exactly the same as the LT, there's no hand picked barrel, nor is anything else done to the action to improve it, so from a shooting point of view your chances of getting one that shoots well are exactly the same as getting a LT that shoots well.

i have 3-30'06, 300 win mag, % 338 win..they all shoot well the 338 is a steady .75" shooter..for the money they are a deal..

My 264 Win Mag, pictured below, is a tack driver!



[ 11-10-2003, 23:54: Message edited by: POP ]

I purchased a new SuperGrade .270 WCF in 97. The wood is fantastic. I decided I wanted to preserve the wood so I replaced it with a synthetic stock. It has been a very reliable and accurate rifle. All in all, I am very pleased with it.
You can see a photo of it with the wood stock here
Model 70 Classic Supergrade
rimshot

Blue Collar Shooter Magazine

I got a fairly early Supergrade in .300 Win after they were (re-)introduced in the early 90'ies. At the time, the SG was the only, new M70 available with CRF.

The barrel channel on the stock was badly cut, the chamber was no less than enormous and the barrel fouled just about as bad as any rifle I have had the "pleasure" of owning. When all that is said, the rifle actually shot really well - certainly well enough to become my main trophy hunting rifle for the next 6-8 years. Bedded in a Brown Precision plastic handle (the original wood was OK, but nothing special) the rifle travelled large parts of the globe and never let me down.

I still have it, but I have eventually put on another barrel.
- mike

Just as a data point, I have a bone-stock 270 Supergrade. I have not handloaded for it yet. Last trip to the range it put five shots of Hornady Custom 130 SSTs into 1". Not outstanding, but not bad either.

The rifle is well made. My only problem is it weighs 9.75 lbs with a 3.5-10 Leupold. It does have a FINE piece of wood on it, though

Robb

This is just my opinion so don't be hatin on me.
I believe with the Win supergrade you are mostly paying extra for the fancy wood, the rest is factory.
My own experience with Winchester rifles is I have owned 4 and sold 4. None of them would shoot (1" groups or better) even after significant work. I have had better luck with Remington, Ruger and Savage.
I finally got fed up/frustrated with all the work/tweaking/reloading the factory rifles needed to get them to shoot as well as I wanted. I figured by the time you have gotten them to shoot you have put enough money into them that you could have bought a nicer rifle with the money in the first place.
So I broke down and bought an H-S Precision, Pro Hunter. It shoots under 1" with everything I have put through it right out of the box.

If it was me for the money I would look at the Kimber. They have a nice wood stock also and better components with a nicely put together rifle. If you really want an even nicer piece of wood get the Signature model.

A friend has one in 300 win mag. Nice wood,nice rifle period. We've tried all kinds of load development and the thing shoots 150's like crazy. Anything heavier and they open up. Could happen with any rifle. I've seen plenty of supergrades that had wood rivaling the cheap Lt models.For 850 dollars,which is what I see them going for all the time new. You could buy a Lt model for a little over 400 dollars and have work done on it like trigger,hell a new shilen or other high end barrel and float it. You'll end up with a rifle that will shoot.For the same money.

[ 11-13-2003, 00:42: Message edited by: RMK ]

The action and barrel are the same on a SG or Classic LT. You pay for wood, inletted swivel bases and bottom metal on the SG.

Winchester CRF rifles are not made to be tack drivers, and rarely are. That said, most will shoot around 1-1.5" @ 100 yards. That's pretty damned good for a hunting rifle. If you refuse to own a wonderful rifle like a M70 because it won't shoot under 1", you have lost sight of reality, IMO.

I once had a pre-64 (made in 1949) .375 H&H Suoergrade that would put 3 shots into about .75" from a bench. Three shots was about all I cared to fire from it at any given time, from a bench!

What a fine gun it was, with a Lyman Alaskan in a Jaeger QD sidemount, a Lyman 48 on the receiver with a Redfield Sourdough up front!

I bought a Super Grade in 300 WinMag about 3 years ago. Same thoughts as others in here.....just a really nice chunk of wood to look at.
The first round I chambered and fired in it got stuck in the chamber, and I had to POUND the bolt open with my hand. Not good. Checked everything over, inspected the brass, couldn't see a damned thing wrong. Same thing happened for the other 10 or so rounds I put into it. I measured all the brass, inspected the chamber and bore, still couldn't figure it out why it would be sticking so bad. So I sent it off to my gunsmith, and he made a Cerrosafe cast of the chamber, and inspected the chamber with a borescope, and he found a large tooling mark gouged in the side of the chamber that had to have been done when it was reamed at the factory. So he cut off a 1/4" or so, rethreaded and rechambered it, and did a trigger job while he was at it. WAY BETTER.
I also had a problem of 'wandering zero'...that sweet looking piece of wood warped during weather changes, and so every time I took it to the range, it was WAY off where it had last been shooting. SO.... I basically sanded the hell out of the barrel channel using sandpaper around a dowel, freefloating it, then glassbedded it for about 3 inches from the chamber.
Now it shoots. 180 grain Nosler Partitions, 75 grains Reloader22, 3150 FPS, 1 1/2" at 200 yards. Took some farting around, but now it shoots.
Was the "supergrade" title deserved? Or should I have just bought a Sako or Tikka?

I bought a 30-06 supergrade 2 or 3 years ago. It has the really great wood, and the williams bottom metal, the inleted swivel bases, and the plastic forend piece. I shoot wallmart 150 grain corelockted in it. It shoots right at an inch with that ammo. It is just too heavy for carrying around. It weighs in at about 10.5 lbs loaded. I bought an earlier classic in 300 win mag that has the two piece bottom metal. It had wandering zero when it got hot. I could have fixed it, but my son who I really bought it for is not going to go elk hunting for several years due to job constrints, so I sold it. The wood was not as nice as the 30-06.
I and retired but work in a gun shop part time. I was looking at the stock the other day and they still have the older ones in stock, but the new ones are called super grade III. The wood on the new one's doesn't seem to be as good.
The other model 70's I have are featherweights. I have replaced the trigger guards with the williams steel one (~$80.00), and the winchester steel grip cap (~17.00).
I was told the the pushfeed winchester model 70's made after they did away with the red cocking indicators are of higher quality than the previous ones. Also I was told that winchester is going to CRPF on all the push feed models eventually. However I am doing all my pig and deer hunting with a Pre 81 Browning BLR in 358 Winchester during this fall. Have yet to connect, but I will report when I do.