I've got a pair of pre-64s I recently had rebarreled (one a Whelen, the other a 9.3x62) and both have feeding problems and sticky safeties. The Whelen won't feed 200gr bullets from the left side and the 9.3x62 won't feed ANY bullet from the right side except when only one round is in the mag.

Anyway, I need a model 70 wizard to smooth these issues out. Thoughts...

Sounds like a follower issue on both rifles on the feed issue. Did you just rebarrel them or did you do some other work? I beat when you get the follower working for one it will work on the other, the cartridges are very similiar.

The safety issue I will leave to someone else more qualified to answer they can be a little tricky.

You might try getting a magnum magazine follower from Wisners PN:10570A If this works its going to be about the cheapest route. I am pretty sure your follower needs to be fit but I don't suggest hogging it out with a dremel tool. What calibers were the original rifles chambered in?

Were the 270 and the 06 barrel you have for sale the original chamberings?

If so the non magmum follower is definatly wrong.

schromf, the whelen and the 9.3X62 are basically a 30 06 case (the 9.3X62 is just a touch shorter) So why would the follower be wrong?

I built a rifle about 3 years ago on a pre-64 model 70 that had a similar feeding problem. It was originally chambered in 30-06 but ended up being re-barreled to a 270. Left side feeding was its problem as well. I changed out magazine boxes, followers, extractors etc. Nothing helped. Ended up sending it to a good metalsmith (Jim Dubell) who fixed the problem. I dont remember exactly what he did but I do know it took considerable time and some carefull milling of the rails on the action. I would suspect the rifle never did feed right. Even in its original configuration. The whelen just isnt that different from the 30-06.

quote:

Originally posted by Customstox:
schromf, the whelen and the 9.3X62 are basically a 30 06 case (the 9.3X62 is just a touch shorter) So why would the follower be wrong?

BECAUSE IT'S A M70! AND NOT A MAUSER!

The Whelen was a 270 and the 9.3x62 was a 30-06. Both fed just fine in their originally chamberings.

The Whelen will feed pointed 225 and 250 bullets flawlessly, but the flat nose on some 200s jams (like the 200 Rem FL) on at about 3:00 near the extractor cut when fed from the left side.

The 9.3 feeds flawlessly from the left with any bullet, but can't seem to manage round #3 or #5 (from the right). It's as if the case head dips too low into the mag near the mag/claw exchange and then binds up. Perhaps a stronger mag spring would help.

I too am curious why the mag follower would be needed here?

I'm thinking the sticky safety might be because of the reblue. Perhaps they just need to be worked a bunch to smooth out. Moreover, they are smooth going from safe to fire, it's just sticky going from fire to safe.

Don't know what to tell you about the feeding issue. Maybe you will be lucky and have Burgess, Wisner or one of the gurus step in.

As to the safety, it is sticky going from safe to fire because the safety is camming the firing pin back off of the sear. You mentioned you had the gun reblued. I'll bet a dollar to a hole in the doughnut that you had some trigger work done as well. The tolerances between the trigger, sear, firing pin and safety are so close that any stoning will almost always produce safety problems. The answer, hope and pray Wisner will read this post and chime in....

The Whelen had a lot of trigger work done, including a new firing pin assembly, a new sear, and a new trigger itself - well "new" used parts. The old ones needed to go for various obvious reasons.

However, the 9.3 did not have any trigger work done, and is just as sticky. Moreover, the two rifles were worked on by completely different people, so it is not a case of a single mis-informed gunsmith.

quote:

Originally posted by 9.3x62:
The Whelen had a lot of trigger work done, including a new firing pin assembly, a new sear, and a new trigger itself - well "new" used parts. The old ones needed to go for various obvious reasons.

However, the 9.3 did not have any trigger work done, and is just as sticky. Moreover, the two rifles were worked on by completely different people, so it is not a case of a single mis-informed gunsmith.

That doesn't seem to make any sense. Your saying that on the 9.3 the safety had absolutely no problems before the rebarrel, and during the rebarrel you had absolutely no work done to the trigger, sear, bolt components, or safety, and now the safety is sticky?

quote:

That doesn't seem to make any sense. Your saying that on the 9.3 the safety had absolutely no problems before the rebarrel, and during the rebarrel you had absolutely no work done to the trigger, sear, bolt components, or safety, and now the safety is sticky?

That is precisely what I am saying. Other than being disassembled and re-assembled for re-bluing the bolt/trigger/safety is as original.

Here are the suspects:





The 9.3 is on top...

Was it hot blued or rust blued? There may be some build-up from the latter that is affecting the fit of the parts. Teflon and other coatings are way worse in that regard. Just a wild thought.

My smith just hates M70 safeties when he is working on them. I am doing a M70 now and when I blue my rifle, he is going to do fitting work on it as these are pretty close tolerance I guess. He does work on them though and knows what he is doing, if your looking for a source on smiths he does good work and he is reasonable. If your interested I will give you his coontact information.

And I know the 30-06/270 mag follower is designed for the same size case as you have rechambered to. But it isn't feeding right, there are a short list of probable causes, Mag follower, magazine spring, feed ramp right in front of the mag follower, or rails.

In response to the follower being wrong both of these cases are .050" bigger at the neck now, so while the body of the case is similar dimensions it a lot bigger at the throat.

And no I am not sure that a factory follower of any flavor is going to be quite right. Winchester never chambered either of these in a factory rifle. They did chamber a 358 Winchester though and my first look would be to see if there is any difference between these parts and a 308 in the same model.

Nice rifles, definatly worth the effort to straighten out.

I had them out for their maiden voyage to the range today. Both produced MOA groups, and maybe even a touch better, so that was encouraging...

One of the rules which has worked for me in re-doing action feeding, is to look closely at the opposite point(s) from where the problem appears to be...

As Shromf says, the neck ends of both cases are now "fatter"...so when the neck is pushed up next to the mag rail at the front of the mag box and.and then on top of the feed ramp, that tends to move the opposite side of the bullet into a position where it may hit or snag on something. Likewise, pushing the nose up more tends to create a more acute angle, so the rear of the cartridge case is forced further "down" into the mag.

My guess is that strengthening the mag spring will not help. It is more likely to me that the changed geometry is the problem, though of course I have been wrong before...and no doubt will be again soon, if not now.

I agree with Shromf, I'd try a few different followers first. I don't know if Winchester has made any vintage of the Model 70 in .35 Whelen, but if they have, that's the one I'd try first.

I'd also try buying a couple of extra .30-06 followers and experimenting with them, while keeping the original follower exactly that...original. Then you can always at least refer to what the original IS while experimenting.

Last resort is to try a little relieving of the areas which seem appropriate to restore the original geometry, but DON'T DO THAT YOURSELF UNTIL YOU HAVE EXHAUSTED ALL OTHER OPTIONS...including sending the rifles to a competent 'Smith well-known for successfully doing that work.

(After the 'Smith gets done with them, you can always eyeball his work to learn what was necessary, so the next time you MAY want to risk doing it yourself. Never hurts to pay for good work, both to get good functioning guns, and to learn how they were modified to function well.)

quote:

Originally posted by 9.3x62:

quote:

That doesn't seem to make any sense. Your saying that on the 9.3 the safety had absolutely no problems before the rebarrel, and during the rebarrel you had absolutely no work done to the trigger, sear, bolt components, or safety, and now the safety is sticky?

That is precisely what I am saying. Other than being disassembled and re-assembled for re-bluing the bolt/trigger/safety is as original.

------------------------------

From this distance, any diagnosis of the safety problem is pretty much a SWAG(Scientific Wild-Axx Guess)...

My first guess with the info available and no close up look at the parts, is:

When the "Bluer" disassembled and "prepped" the bolt & safety for bluing, perhaps he also did some polishing of the bolt & safety parts to "clean them up" so the bluing would "take" well. That is a very common practice among bluers who are not also skilled gunsmiths.

If he leaned at all hard on the polishing wheel, he may have slightly changed the radius of the safety cam or the safety lever stud when doing the polishing. Either one can make the safety harder (sticky) to engage, without making it any more difficult to disengage.

That's because when the safety is being put "on", it is camming the striker back slightly against full firing spring tension, so any loss of a smooth, even, cam leverage caused by an irregular or changed ogive (radius) may be noticed as stickiness.

On the other hand, when you move the safety lever to "off", you are releasing the firing pin spring tension a minute fraction of an inch, so you have that spring helping you do it.

At least that's what I first suspect without being able to hold it in my hands.....

quote:

the neck ends of both cases are now "fatter"...so when the neck is pushed up next to the mag rail at the front of the mag box and.and then on top of the feed ramp, that tends to move the opposite side of the bullet into a position where it may hit or snag on something.

You did a lot better job describing this than I did, thats why I think the magnum follower might work. I don't think your going to find a Winchester 35 Whelen follower, I don't think Winchester ever chambered a rifle in this round. Thats why I think looking at a 358 Win follower would help. I could indeed be wrong about the magnum follower, but its a cheap fix.

THe answer to this Winchester riddle just might be to look at Remington. Tommorrow I am going to do some homework on Remington followers; they did chamber the Whelen, and I am going to check part numbers between the 30-06 and the Whelen followers. If these are different a factory part is probably not going to be available and it is going to be a fitting job. The suggestion to get another follower is valid, get another and do your grinding and retain your factory part, you aren't hosing up anything that way.

I would strongly suggest you don't start fiddling around with your rails, if you mess up something on these your action is toast and your rifles are too nice with to much invested to donk them up at this stage.

Thanks for all the input,I appreciate it.

No, I would NEVER dare touch the rails myself - that is definitely worth paying a reputed professional for, if modifying them becomes necessary.

To my knowledge, the pre-64 70 was never chambered in either of these rounds, and in fact in no rounds that were even close to these in neck diameter. The explanations concerning the fatter neck and its potential implications for feeding seem plausible, perhaps especially for a CRF.

In my experience, PFs are much more forgiving when re-barreling to non-original rounds (of the same headsisze), at least in matters concerning feeding. I've had scores of re-barrel jobs on PF actions, (including some Whelens and 9.3x62s) and never encoutered a feeding problem of any sort - all the original parts worked perfectly. This includes 721s, 700s, 70 PFs, (older) 77s, and a number of others.

I would conjecture that it is precisely because the CRF is designed more carefully (at least with respect to the mag/extractor exhange) that modifying it slightly may become necessary when switching calibers, even those that share the parent's basic case and headsize.

The safety issue is more annoying than problematic - it is smooth from Safe to Fire, which I suppose is the most important.

Anyway, swapping followers seems like a reasonable place to start.

9.3x62,

Well I looked up parts on Remington and I didn't see a special follower for the 35 Whelen. So thats a dead end.

I took the liberty of looking at this like it was my wallet and gun invloved. The cheapest way to go about this from my perspective is buy a Magazine Spring PN: 9070 ($8.00) and a follower PN: 10170 ($34.50) from Wisners.

WHile your waiting on that get on your reloading bench and make up four dummy rounds, no powder replace the primer with a trimmed pencil eraser. Then clean your action up very clean wipe out any residual oil, ( no I don't think its dirty now causing the problem). WHile your oragising parts get some machists blue.

Once all the above is assembled, start with changing out the original mag spring first, and see what happens. Its possible that an old weak spring is the source of this problem, I doubt its going to solve it but eliminate this first.

Next lay your round on the follwer outside the rifle and see how the round fits to the follower. If its not laying flush and the fatter neck its causing a cocking, this is your first clue.

If the spring and the follower is no joy, then take gun blue and coat your dummy rounds and observe. You said only certain rounds are being problematic, use the blueing on these rounds only when your stacking up the magazine. I would start with a single round first though, and look where the blueing was leaving marks inside your action, pay particular attention to your follower and the feed ramp. Maybe one of the machinists on the board here can recommend something that is bright pink or orange instead of the blue compound it would be easier to see the marks.

When your doing multiple rounds also look at the rounds before and after your jam, if these are cocking inside the magazine and causing a problem the blueing will mark the other cases on the body somewhere.

Once you have done all of the above your going to have an idea of where the problem is. I suspect that the mag follwer is going to need some contouring on a mill or similar, but hand filing would also work.

If you get done with all of this and you still haven't got a clue, send it to a good smith. Denis Olsen in Plains Montana would be a good choice.Send the parts you bought with the rifle.

I just got off the phone wiith my gunsmith friend. We discussed your rifles. He agreed the list of culprits above are possibilities, and he agreed any of the above could be an issue.

Specifically on your Whelen and the flat nosed bullets he said the first place he qould look would be your breech. THe Model 70 has a cone breech and if the breech is rough or not polished the flat nosed bullets could be catching ( think the inside of a funnel ) if it is rough or not polished, and causing the round to cock a little. He said this would be the first place he would look as the rifle is feeding spire point bullets OK.

Another item not discussed was a burr on the extractor, could be causing an issue.

Try looking a your breech first if its rough or not polished it a good chance this is the problem on the Whelen.

My 9.3x62 is on a Winchester Model 54 action. It feeds pretty slick. I got it from Ray Atkinson so I suppose you could ask him if he thinks anything special is needed as far as followers or other parts.

Schromf & 9.3x62-

Dykem [SP?] (Dye-chem),pronounced "Dike-em", comes in other colours than blue...it also comes in red, for instance....and that is a brand so common to machinists that it is a term used generically to refer to the whole arena of layout dyes...just like "Xerox" is commonly used to refer to photo-copying....even if your "Xerox" machine is really an HP.

Any tool supply house should know what you want if you ask for red Dykem.

I have a '61 270 FWT that would not feed well from the left side. To make a LONG story short, it ended up that on the left side the area under the rail was machined to deep (from the factory). This left too much rail overhang. I figured this out by studying my other pre-64's, and a M1903 & M1917. I cut the left rail so that it had the proper "overhang", and despite now having a rail width of almost what a magnun would have, it feeds perfect.

I agree with Alberta Canuck that feed ramp is the problem and the fact it feeds pointed bullets indicates that is the problem.

And additional but related problem is that the rifles might have been marginal feeders when in 270 and 30/06 and those bigger calibres simply have the cartridge go further to one side and snag on the chamber.

Another issue is if the extractor is too tight with the different brass due to different extractor groove dimensions. That will tend to force the cartrdige down into the magazine and make the bullet end swing out more to one side.

Mike

9.3x62,

The problem you are experiencing is the cartridge is not releasing soon enought from under the feed lips of the receiver. The system you have is marginal which is why it works with the pointed bullets but not with the round nose.

The normal fix for this is to open up the feed lips in the receiver, but if you over do it you will get rounds jumping out too early. A safer way to go about it is to bend the upper portion of the magazine inward until you get the proper release. The follower you have is fine as well as the spring as long as they worked with the original calibers.

The safety problem can be fixed by removing a small amount of metal by polishing or stoning from the surface of the firing pin assembly where the safety engages. The safety should lift off the firing pin assembly from the sear about .015" to .020" to insure that it will sear up. This should be done by a competent gunsmith.

Good luck,
Headache

When the extractor picks up the round at the half way point if not fitted properly it can guide the round in at the wrong angle, same is true of the ejector at the last minute when it takes hold of the case..according to Jack Belk and he has fixed several of them for me...However I have never had that trouble converting those two calibers in a model 70..

who openned the bolt face on the 9.3, if overdone it can get things out of sinc...

Probably instead of all this advise that just a bunch of maybes, you should send it to Dennis Olson, Plains, Mt. he is quite good at making things feed right....

quote:

Probably instead of all this advise that just a bunch of maybes, you should send it to Dennis Olson, Plains, Mt. he is quite good at making things feed right....

Ditto that advise.