I ordered a Win M70 Classic Sporter LT, in .30-06. It came in today at my dealer. I was really disappointed in it. The color of the wood was muddy brown and the checkering was YELLOW. The checkering looked like it was not finished properly and looked about the color of a Chinese SKS stock. The barrel was also against the left side of the barrel channel. I sent it back. They are sending it back to Winchester to have the stock fixed.

What will they do - refinish it? How will they fix the barrel channel? What do you think happened to it? Just not enough stain in the checkering? Is this what they normally look like?

Is this the lowest-end model of the Classic line?

Thanks for any help,
Dave

Dave
If it is not too late take a look at the Blaser R-93.

I told you not to waste your money on crappy American rifles.

For the $500 or so you spent on that POS, you could have bought a Tikka T3 and gone home happy.

But you had to have controlled round feeding, and buy the "rifleman's rifle" crap.

After buying a 416 Rem mag Model 70 safari express, which I am now customising, my impression is - a good rifle which has been buggered up by penny pinching been counters who obviously run the company.

It SHOULD be the Rifleman`s Rifle!

An out of the box M70 hasn't been the "rifleman's rifle" for forty years. Fortunately there are still plenty of the old ones around at good prices.

this is all very strange to me. i have 4 model 70s and none of them are, in any way, flawed. i have a .22-250, .30-06, .338, and a .375. all of them shoot, and look, really good. on the other hand, i do have a Tikka Whitetail Hunter and it suffers from some of the cosmetic problems that Dave_T described, i.e. the barrel runs way off to the left side of the channel and the stock is obviously cheap wood. the stock has almost no visible grain at all. it has the appearance of something like balsa wood. the barrel doesn't touch the stock, but it is clearly not aligned correctly. however, it shoots pretty well so i am not going to gripe about it.

as for the Winchesters, they shoot very well. when i listen to the comments on this board, i guess i must have gotten the only 4 good ones made. none of them are pre-64 models.

[ 12-09-2003, 17:46: Message edited by: bill smith ]