I have medium height rings on my prewar M70 which gives me adequate clearance for the safety. Does anyone use low rings on their prewar or is it too tight to access the safety conveniently/quickly? I would like to upgrade my mounts and would appreciate any advice.

If you use a modern scope (Leupold, say) and mount it on a pre-64 Model 70, you'll have to use medium rings or else the bolt handle will indeed hit the occular lens housing. It doesn't matter if you own a pre-war, transition, or late version pre-64, you'll run into the same problem with all of them.

One of the improvements with the post-64 and later versions (current included) of the Model 70 is a lower bolt handle profile that works with low-mounted, modern scopes.

AD

I have had low rings and bases on all of my pre war and pre 64 Winchesters, it depends on what scope you use and where you position it..I have used the old Redfield, Buehler and Weaver low rings with the Leupold 3X, Weaver 2.5 & 3x and the Lyman Alaskan and the Leupold Alaskan...The 4X Weaver and Leupold work fine on pre 64's with low rings...

I have a 4X Leupold on my old 300 H&H (pre 64) and it works fine, but it is close indeed. you may have to move the base adjustment a bit to the left and use the scope adjustments to bring it to zero...I like my scope down real low because I shoot low comb rifles for iron sights.

Today most all of my rifle have low talley rings and basis on them...One big bore has medium...and my varmint rifle has medium, to clear that big 3x9x50..