Just for clarification, I have done all of this with an unloaded rifle.

I just traded for a pre war (1939) Winchester Model 70 with the "backwards" safety. The safety lever will not rotate all the way to safe but goes part of the way. When I push it part of the way to safe and it stops, it will go back to fire when I release it.

When the safety lever is part of the way on and I am holding it in that position, I cannot pull the trigger and get it the rifle to fire. When I release the safety and it jumps back to the fire position, the rifle will then immediately fire.

If I cock the rifle and leave it in the fire position, nothing happens until I pull the trigger.

Is this a simple and easy fix or do I have a serious (expensive) problem?

It won't break the bank, but let someone with the necessary experience work on it

I plan to let a quality gunsmith do the work.

I was just wondering what caused the problem and what was needed to fix it. Also is this something that is common with pre war model 70's.

Simple fix per my reply 24hr

Send it to Jim Kobe. He's honest, does top notch work and with an extremely fast turnaround time.

You probably have enough wear between the trigger and sear that it is allowing the firing pin to drop past the safety notch and it won't fully engage when the rifle is cocked. If you pull the trigger and then release what little engagement you have the rifle will fire. Someone like Jim can rework the notch a bit and get the safety to slide into it and you'll be fine.

Thanks Jim. Good to know this is a simple fix. What I found and is mentioned below made me think the same thing prior to reading your response.


Additional information:

While continuing to fool with the rifle as time permitted today, I discovered that if I lifted the bolt handle a bit, the safety would engage properly. I also discovered that the rifle does not fire when the safety is moved to fire after getting it to safety. That only seems to happen when it does not fully engage safety does this happen.

Still not perfect but certainly better. Maybe I am a better gunsmith than I thought.