Reader Forum

Winchester 70 Safety Lock I have a Post-’64 push-feed Winchester Model 70 chambered in .264 Winchester Magnum with a safety lock that will not stay in the breech bolt when under pressure from the striker spring when assembled. This particular rifle has the breech bolt with a firing pin sleeve to retain the striker and a breech bolt sleeve cap to hold the assembly together. There is no firing pin lock screw on this rifle’s breech bolt assembly and the faulty safety has three detents.

So far, I haven’t been able to locate a safe and functional replacement. I have come up with "factory" replacement safeties from Midwest Gun Works, Inc (MidWestGunWorks.com, that have two detents but they do not fit the bolt correctly and would appear to warrant modification and fitting. I have replaced the plunger/spring and safety lock pins filling to the original safety lock for correct function only to have the safety pop out of the bolt recess when moving from position to position.

Can I use a factory-correct Winchester two-detent safety lock and fit it to the breech bolt and have it function safely? With my research efforts of available schematics, do I possibly have a fabricated/incorrect bolt that was made to function in this rifle? John Paton Crawford Country Gunsmithing Your rifle, we fear, was made during a period when off-shore interests were in a fierce race to acquire US-based companies, milk them dry, and then abruptly cut them loose. Winchester was among them.

Almost without exception, product quality of the acquired companies lessened. We know of several veteran Pre-’64 Winchesterwise gunsmiths who were deeply shocked and angered at what was presented to them as "a Winchester" for repair. This respondent recalls an incident involving a Model 94 with a bright purple—not blue—receiver. The gunsmith expected the color could be removed in the refinishing. It was, but the receiver could not (or refused) to accept rebluing, including hot bluing.

The fault, it turned out, lay in the composition of the metal and not the bluing salts or bluing practitioner. Thank goodness that the corporate ghost of the man for whom the American company named itself— Browning— eventually brought Winchester home and "The Rifleman’s Rifle" soared back to regain its Pre- ’64 reputation.

In your case, your problem may be rooted in the past milking process or because it was disassembled and improperly reassembled by an earlier owner, who may have lost a couple of parts in the doing. Since the safety appears to be questionable, keep the serial number at hand and call the Browning/Winchester customer service department at Hopefully, what damage has been done can be reasonably undone.

Remington 514 For those working on this rifle, the 1980 version of Firearms Assembly 3: The NRA Guide to Rifles and Shotguns has a page and two-thirds on it. Numrich Gun Parts Corporation had the extractor, plunger, and spring in stock at reasonable prices when I dealt with a 514 that wouldn’t extract. Turns out replacing those parts didn’t solve the problem. I got significant improvement by cleaning the chamber down to "eating clean" and then adding a dab of sewing machine oil.

Check the chamber under magnification for any peening from dry firing. Brownells lists the Tom Menck .22 Chamber Ironing Tool that swages out burrs in rimfire chambers caused by dry firing. Best of luck. Mike Roca Thanks for the info! Marlin 1894M Rebuild I have most of the parts for a Marlin 1894M that I would like to make complete. Searches at the usual parts sellers have come up empty and the parts I need seem unavailable. Where can I have parts made? Lowell Fitch "Make them?" Not without factory blueprints.

But the complimentary Gun Parts Source List from Brownells goes beyond "usual" sources. AG