One of my family guns is a Win. mod. 54 .270 WCF, it's extremely accurate and has been drilled and tapped..The bolt is being turned down, but I cannot find a Buehler safety or one of the old mod. 70 type safeties that was manufactured some years back, and I need a scope friendly safety.

If anyone has either one of these units and wants to sell it please let me know, I will buy either..

I have used it with iron sights for years, but I have had several instances wherein a scope would have been the better choice..I have only recently noticed this, I suppose the years are catching up with me to some extent..

Also I have seen the practice of holding the trigger back, and closeing the bolt on a live round. I have seen this done by some old timers on both the mod. 70 and 54, as it was a common practice back then.. my question is does this place the firing pin against a loaded round or not? I need to know if this is this a safe practice, if I cannot find a safety..

Any suggestions would be helpful...

if my memory is right i think jim kobe had a fix for the 54 safety - give him a call

You might try googling Tilden Safety...that was the most popular after market one in the 1930's and 40's. I've got them on all my early M'70s and M54's. The later Winchester M70 factory ones look very much like them.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Also I have seen the practice of holding the trigger back, and closeing the bolt on a live round. I have seen this done by some old timers on both the mod. 70 and 54, as it was a common practice back then.. my question is does this place the firing pin against a loaded round or not? I need to know if this is this a safe practice, if I cannot find a safety..

Ray, I wouldn't go in the field with someone who handled his rifle as you describe. The firing pin is in fact resting on the primer, and it would not take much to set the primer off. If you have any doubts about this, do as you describe with an empty primed case and then give the cocking piece a gentle tap with a brass hammer and see what happens.

I haven't been able to confirm this, but it seems to me that a pre-64 Model 70 bolt shroud, cocking piece, firing pin and safety could be fitted to a Model 54 bolt. If you have a Model 70, it would be an easy experiment to confirm or disprove this supposition.

Yeah, never do that. I also think a M70 unit will fit but I sold my 54 last year.

Canuck,
I have been looking high and low for a Tilden safety for a 54 or an old Buehler wing safety but no luck so far...

I know that at one time Win. offered to convert all 54s to mod. 70s, shortly after the 70s came about, and at no cost to the consumer. That was the good old days for sure. I will check into changing to a mod. 70 shourd and safety..

I have never used the practice of closing the bolt uncocked on a mod 54 or 70, just know some African PHs that do that..Always seemed to me the firing pin would be riding on the primer but I don't know that..for all I knew maybe the firing pin rebounded into the bolt or whatever.

Come to think of it, the PHs left the bolt up and closed it just before they shot, mostly when following up on wounded buffalo with a .375 mod. 70..it was fast for sure, slam the bolt down and shoot.

Butchloc,
Jim Kobe has the gun now, he is rewelding the bolt handle for a scope, but apparantly can't fix the safety problem..

Ray all you have to do is ask the right person.

There are two types of M54 wins.

The early guns were a slow lock, just like the 1903 Springfield they copied, long striker fall and deep cocking cam notch in the bolt.

About 1928 they created the speed lock version, this had the 9/32" firing pin fall just like the M70 that the M54 later turned into.

So with two different firing pins, and safety lever positions, that is the big problem.

Pre 1964 model 70 sleeves can be fitted into the speed lock m54 bolts, and the two extra cuts on the firing pin and cocking piece needs to be done in order to make things time correctly

The early slow lock guns are the real problem as either a new cocking piece / firing pin must be made and installed, in order to use the M70 sleeve / safety system, or use the Buehler type low scope safety.

Ed LaPour makes new sleeves, and cocking piece firing pin units for both versions.

I will email you a guys name and number tomorrow from work that has the remaining 54 Buehler type safety copies that I used to make years ago.

J Wisner

Thanks a bunch Jim, as usual your the man to ask..

And let me know too.

Jim

Jim K,
So is my gun the early version or the later version?? Sounds like we have a couple of options..

Mr. Atkinson. Do you intend to still use the factory trigger? Just in case you decide to change it, I had a M54 custom with a black body Timney trigger and I couldn't remove the bolt by depressing the trigger as in the original configuration. I was told that the Timney wouldn't allow it. Just in case.....CB

No sir, this gun has a nice original trigger that was worked over many years ago..I may take the slack out of it..

Thanks to AR and several good guys, I have found a mod. 70 shroud and safety that will hopefully just slip right on and at worst may need a tad of tweaking and I can do that myself..I also just found a couple of mod. 54 Buehler safetys so I also bought those for future use....

the jewel trigger won't allow the bolt to be released either... and the sear allows the bolt to go too far forward to allow the factory safety to catch in the notch....

That's a shame. Mine was a .280 and a good shooter. It had a M70 shroud/safety. But, I sold it because of the bolt issue.