I have a pre-War Model 70 Winchester with the original safety on the left side of the bolt sleeve. I have located a Tilden safety, identical to those I have on other pre-War Model 70's, but I am unable to figure out how to remove the original safety.

I have disassembled the bolt, removed striker, firing pin spring and sleeve, but I don't see how to proceed. There is a hole in the face of the bolt sleeve, but no slot in the object inside it, so I suspect it's a pin, rather than a screw. Where do I go from here?

The first year or two of M 70 production did not have the cross pin to help retain the lever in place.

The later M70's had the cross pin on the RH side on the flat, it is 1/16" in diameter and goes in toward the inside of the cocking piece recess. Make sure there is no short pin inside the hole holding the lever in place, by inserting a smaller punch all the way thru the hole in the sleeve.

Also, after many years of crud build up the lever may be hard to remove even after the cross pin is out. I have had to simply move the lever back and forth while pulling upward on it at the same time.

Take a good look at the lever by the detent area as it has a small ridge on its body that engages a slot in the the sleeve. There is only a small area of lever rotation that the lever can be pulled upward that the small ridge is not interlocking with the sleeve.

James Wisner
Life Member Amercian Custom Gunmakers Guild

Thank, Mr. Wisner,

I searched extensively for the cross pin before it occurred to look at the serial number of the rifle. 17,XXX, i.e. no cross pin. The safety came out with a little tugging, but so did the spring and plunger. They finally showed up in a fold in the front of my sweat shirt. Now all I have to do is figure out how to compress the spring to get the new safety into place.

Bill Warren

Success! I got the safety installed and the bolt reassembled and in working order, all ready for the deer season a week from tomorrow. My nephew, who will be using the rifle (a .257 Roberts converted to .25-'06) will be vastly relieved.

(The rifle was already converted when I bought it. I would never have committed such a desecration.)

Does the original safety obscure the open sights when on safe?

I finally worked out that the love of the old flag safety on 98 Mausers by old hands in Africa could be because it sticks up, blocking the sights - a flag indeed when something is charging.

The original safety is in the fore-and-aft position when engaged. It doesn't block a thing. The Model 70's predecessor, the Model 54, had a Mauser style wing safety, however.

My go-to DG rifle is built on a P 14 Enfield action, so the top of the bolt shroud is entirely clean. Hours of practice taught me to disengage the safety when raising the rifle to my shoulder.

Yes, xausa, I try to only slip the safety at the last moment in order to have a consistent procedure. However, one day in Africa I had to run some distance to get a shot at a large kudu and, somehow, when I went to take the shot, forgot about the safety and could not for the life of me think why the rifle wouldn't fire.

When Win came out with the mod 70 safety, the sent letters out and you could have your old mod. 70 converted to a pre 64 for no charge, that was back in the day!! They were marked with an X on the 54 then stamped 70...Few folks bothered back then but my Uncle did and I picked up one some time back but sold it to a collector..As I recall they made another change with that but don't remember what that was, maybe the trigger????