Winchester Rifles

[Guest Stacka]

Just browsing around and I noticed a lot of Winchester rifles are cheap. Is this a reflection on the quality of the rifle? Or accuracy of a rifle?

[Offroad Gary]

I had a model 70 in .223 a few years ago, needed trigger upgrade to get accuracy so i put a rifle basix in it, it shot ok after that but was a bit agricultural. I wouldnt buy another, but if you need a budget rifle to shoot deer in the chest with at sensible ranges, it would probably do the job just fine.

[gbal]

FWIW:"Winchester repeating Arms Company is part of a business group...with access to factories and resources...around the world.This gives us the ability to produce the best fiearms possible with the value you expect from Winchester...all at the appropriate factory.

 

Winchester rifles are no longer produced at the famous New Haven Conneticut plant.

 

Model 70,since 2006 produced in S Carolina,USA

Model 94 produced in Japan

 

SX3 and 10i shotguns : mpde in Belgium,some assembly in Portugal

Super x Sourced,Western Europe,assembled Turkey.

 

All marked on barrels....

 

It's unlikely this change was solely driven by uncompromising highest quality alone...words like 'value' are rather non committal.....but the proof really is in the products performance...there is precious little evidence eg that the early furore about 'pre 64 model 70s being better' is really translatable as 'were more accurate'...more desireable,yes....for some.

 

gbal (my old sako had A1 on it,quite right too!)

[Guest Stacka]

Cheers guys.

 

Iv got my eye on another M595, hopefully I'll get a good price for my .222

[Laurie]

'Winchester', so far as rifles go is simply a licensed brand name these days as well as having some design characteristics that survive from 'real Winchesters' in the bolt-action rifles, or are modern copies of the famous levergun designs. Although there are lots of modern very well made 'Winchester 1892s', 'Winchester 1886s' etc made on modern machinery, mostly in Italy, they can't call them 'Winchester' as the name is still trademarked and highly protected.

 

What was the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. based at New Haven, CT morphed into USRAC (the US Repeating Arms Corporation) and was run into the ground by corporate bean counters, struggling to sell a range that relied too much on historic designs. USRAC was eventually bought as a barely going concern by FN which in turn has progressed from being a mainly Belgian manufacturer of (originally) military Mausers into a huge multinational and is nowadays called FNH (Fabrique Nationale Herstal), the Herstal bit being the founding outfit's location, the Belgian town. What was Winchester / USRAC was absorbed into a very large subsidiary called FNH-USA which does a huge amount of US military business, but had to set up US factories and workshops to get Uncle Sam's business. When FNH-USA bought USRAC, the famous New Haven plant was full of worn-out obsolete machinery with a workforce that was tiny compared to the outfit's heyday and which had major morale and industrial relations problems. Allied to cost-cutting measures that had lowered the product specs, quality and reliability (substitution of sintered metal components for stamped / machined steel for instance) and sales were going through the floor even at give-away prices.

 

FNH-USA closed New Haven and sold the site off and introduced a mixture of new models designed for modern CNC machine production and modern versions of the famous pre-'64 Model 70 reintroducing the external extractor arm and claw with 'controlled feed'. As others have said, things called 'Winchester' may depending on model be made in one of several countries. So far as I know, their inherent designs and production quality are as good as any made in modern factories, but the USRAC era did so much lasting damage to the company's reputation that the basic models (X-Bolts) are priced pretty low to compete with base-model Savage, Mossberg and Howa etc rifles. FNH-USA markets the M70 based law enforcement and miltary models as FN, and as the owner of an early FN SPR (Special Police Rifle), I can say that the modern version of the pre-'64 action is a superb repeater, very smooth and reliable, and better than any out or the box Remington 700 I've handled. It has kept the basic post-'64 receiver design which is flat-bottom, rigid, and has a large integral recoil lug while reinstating the best of the Mauser '98 controlled feed bolt characteristics. The original simple Winchester Model 52 / 70 trigger dating back to the 1920s was used, but a Jewell sorted that. I understand that FNH has now changed the M70 trigger, whether for good or ill I can't say.

 

This is the complete opposite of the other M70 I once owned, a push-feed action 'Stealth' which was a real rubbish product of New Haven's final months. It survives - and shoots fantastically well in 6mm BR form having been rebuilt by the Gun Pimp on this forum for Mole-e-30 also of this forum, and has produced some astonishing 100 and 600 yard groups in formal benchrest competition in its new form - so even the 'agricultural' bad-period versions of the 70 had nothing inherently wrong with them.

 

If my FN SPR action is anything to judge by, don't use one for high-pressure small primer cartridges though. My action pierced primers at relatively low loads when it was briefly a 6.5X47 Lapua - a rechamber to the large rifle primer .260 Rem sorted that and it performs very well in this chambering