Super Winchester .338

Back when the Ruger 77 first came out, riflemen liked its lines and, generally, most of its features. One thing I never liked—and I know I was not alone— was the use of aluminum for the trigger guard and floorplate on that rifle. I complained in print, as did many others, and Ruger finally fixed that problem. Recently I bought anew Winchester Model 70 in .338 Winchester Magnum, despite knowing Winchester had lost its collective mind.

This modern adaptation of the classic Model 70 had an aluminum trigger guard and floorplate. Now, on a rifle of good and impressive power which will clearly be put to hard work in the field, one doesn’t want lighter and weaker parts. He wants them heavy to help offset the recoil (the rifle is on the light side) and strong for the jobs this rifle will see. He wants them made of steel. I tested this .338 Mag. for Gun Tests magazine twice.

Once in the December 2012 issue in stock condition up against a Ruger and then in the July 2015 issue up against a custom .338 Win. Mag. rifle built by the late Iver Henriksen, whom Elmer Keith mentioned frequently as being one of his favorite gunsmiths. Before I tested the Model 70 against the Henriksen I made a few significant changes to the Winchester to make it a more even comparison.

The Henriksen had along magazine and extended throat so the rifle could handle the kind of ammo I had long read of in the works of Mr. Keith. It would accept rounds handloaded with bullets seated about a quarterinch farther out than factory .338 Win. Mag. ammo. Factory rounds have the The rifle has had a few easy modifications to vastly improve an already good gun. longer, heavier bullets jammed drastically down into the case so they will fit a 30-06-length magazine.

The heavy bullets reduce powder capacity and cut potential velocity. I discovered it was not hard to make similar changes to my new Winchester. But before I began, I "fixed" things a bit. At the time of my first test of the .338 I had on hand another new Model 70 Winchester, that one in .375 H&H Magnum. The .375 had all-steel parts on its lower surfaces. That got me thinking. Could they? Would they? I got curious and did some disassembly.

To my joy the all-steel parts from the .375 fit right into the wood of the .338 with no alterations nor inletting needed. I got on the phone to Browning and in short order had the all-steel trigger guard, floorplate, and related parts designed for the to me. These are not exactly inexpensive but they are indeed available. Longer Box I found the .375 magazine box was longer than that of the .338. Installing the .375 box into the .338 stock would have required some serious inletting and some other problems.

I came up with a simpler solution. I removed the rear spacer from the .338 box, which gave me nearly a quarter-inch more length, making it the same length as the box in the custom Henriksen. I didn’t have to inlet anything. When I removed the rear spacer the steel .338 box was no longer joined at the back. However, the fit of the magazine into the action steel is such that there’s no need to join the rear of the box back together.

The magazine fits entirely within the lower part of the action, which holds it together perfectly. Of course, the longer .375 mag box would not have fit the action, so I’d have had lots of fudging to do to get a longer mag box in there. I forgot to buy a .375 ejector but there was an easy solution. With the opened-up magazine box the front of the .338 ejector was not far enough rearward and it interfered with the operation of the modified magazine.

I fixed the problem by annealing the ejector, drilling a hole for the axle farther forward, filing off the rear portion to the right contour, and rehardening the modified part. Works like a champ. I had worried that ejected cases would foul on the rear part of the ejection port—the right side of the rear bridge—on the way out. Would I need to grind it away, like I did on my modified .416 Rigby? No. It works just fine in its original configuration. Empty cases fly freely out of the rifle.

Freeboring So far my "gunsmithing" of this rifle required mighty little gunsmithing. However, I needed to lengthen the leade of the rifling, essentially freebore the barrel, so the seated-out bullets had somewhere to go when chambered. I borrowed a throating 375 Model 70. They fit right in without the need for any inletting. Author used the original magazine box but removed the rear spacer.

The box sits completely within the action and cannot open at the rear, so there’s no need to weld it. reamer from my old friend Don Fisher, the noted Colorado gunsmith. Don had used that same throating reamer on my fine .338 OKH custom Mauser rifle many years ago. That rifle has an extended throat, actually free-bored quite a lot, that permits it to accept 300-grain Barnes round-nose bullets seated all the way out, their bases flush with the bottom of the neck of the cartridge.

Though the long rounds won’t fit the magazine, they can be easily loaded one at a time. That rifle is the most accurate bolt-action rifle I’ve ever owned, something of a happy surprise to me because with the free-bore I didn’t expect it to be a tack driver. But it is. The success of the free-bored .338 OKH was the inspiration for lengthening the .338 Winchester Magnum’s throat.

I knew a longer throat would do no harm to its accuracy and, as noted, would give higher velocity with the long (1.75") 300-grain Nosler bullets I wanted to use. When I got the reamer from Don I found it just barely touched the rifling when I poked it in through the very back of the action. Don had throated the barrel of my OKH before mounting it into the action. The tool was on a short shaft and handle and I didn’t have a good way to extend it.

I ended up using a Crescent wrench to turn the cutter and lots of diligent finger work. The reamer was held in its handle with only one set screw and the cutter kept slipping. I couldn’t see what it was doing very well and didn’t know it was slipping, so a job that should have taken minutes took me hours. I didn’t own the tool or I’d have modified its handle. It needed two set screws. Of course, I could have made a better tool to hold the thing but I was already at it and just kept it up.

Persistence paid off and I managed to get the throat cut deep enough. I went into the barrel just a bit more than the length I gained in the modified magazine, about 3/8". Bedding The factory barrel was free floated, a condition I’ve never liked. The solution was to glass bed it. I thought I’d need to incorporate buried cross screws to ensure the stock wood would never split. This Model 70, like some of the older ones, had a lump in the barrel to accept the rear sight.

Early versions of the Model 70 sometimes incorporated a forend attaching screw, going into the lump. I considered doing this but the potential gain didn’t seem worth the effort. Some wonder about the intent of the fourth screw on early Winchester M70s. Elmer Keith had somewhat of a hand in designing that rifle and had long stated he liked his rifles fully inletted, never free floated. I suspect he might have pushed for tying the stock to the barrel with that forend screw. In support of Mr.

Keith’s findings, the most accurate rifles I’ve owned have had their barrels fully bedded, with

The circle shows where the author has installed hidden cross bolts in other rifles to prevent splitting. With Winchester’s new design having two recoil points, there’s no longer a need for the cross bolt. Winchester put a small square shoulder on the action steel at this point. This clever idea eliminated the need for cross bolts and even the third action bolt installed under the floorplate. none of the free-floating concept applied. The wood has to be stable and well sealed for the zero to stay put, of course.

When I examined the inside of this M70 stock I learned that Winchester has created a rifle that does not need any cross screws. The stock doesn’t really need any crossways bracing at all. It appears to have one through the stock just in front of the trigger but if there’s anything in there it’s not steel. Why is this so? Most rifle stocks that split do so as a result of bowing of the thin sides of the stock—where the wood goes The weights induce upward pressure on the barrel at the tip of the forend.

When the epoxy is set the weights are removed but the pressure is still there. The butt stock has a coffee can on it with weights added to counterbalance the front weights, so the stock wood pinched at the vise doesn’t have to do all the work. How much did this improve accuracy? Read the story to find out. around the magazine—under recoil.

The forward recoil lug takes all the recoil force and because the stock is nested solidly in contact with the rifleman’s shoulder, as the recoil lug moves rearward it bows out the stock sides and causes a split, usually just in front of the trigger. This split usually spreads forward to the recoil-lug area, which means total stock failure. One might argue that the rear bolt should clamp the metal firmly to the wood but in truth it does not.

That rear screw ought not to be anywhere near as tight as the one at the main recoil lug. The metal at the back can and does move rearward, allowing the stock wood to bow outward. But now Winchester has prevented the possibility of bowing of the wood by the simple expedient of including a small square shoulder at the very rear of the action. Recoil pushes equally in both places, both of which were glass bedded at the factory. This means the thin wood sides can’t bow out unless the action collapses like a tin can.

Thanks to this great new design I didn’t need to inlet any cross screws. Winchester also eliminated the third action bolt that used to hide under the floor plate. However, I needed to fix the freefloated barrel with the excellent

5 inches long and takes up lots of space in the brass case. The farther out one can seat it the faster it can be driven. The loaded round has the bullet deep enough to fit the original rifle. That’s not good enough, says the author. The barrel had to be throated and the magazine lengthened to permit this. If you want to use long, heavy bullets in the .338 this is a useful and simply achieved technique, and you don’t really need to get a steel trigger guard and floorplate to do it. Acraglas from Brownells.

I’ve used Acraglas Gel, Steel Bed, and the original Acraglas in the red box over the years. When I looked to see what was on hand I found only one unopened red box. The rest of my stuff on hand was so old the resin had lost its solvent and was not usable. Following the instructions, I carefully mixed up enough for the job but found it to be too wet for what I was going to do. Accordingly I added all the supplied flocking, a stiffener, so the bedding would not run out when I inverted the stock.

Why invert the stock whilst glass bedding? I wanted to add some upforce on the very end of the stock by the simple expedient of hanging a weight on the end of the barrel with the rifle held inverted. I chose two steel bars that together weighed a little over three pounds, tied them together and hung them on the end of the barrel, the rifle being held gently upside down in a vise.

Because the weights were more than twice as far from the forend tip as the forend tip is from the action, the extended moment arm gave an effective upward force at the forend tip of a little over eight pounds. My photos show the setup, with the rifle in my vise. I had to hang a can full of odd weights on the butt to balance the load because I didn’t want to tighten the vise on the wood any more than necessary. Here’s a tip: Don’t use tape to support the weight.

As the epoxy slowly cures, the tape can slip and let the weights drop off, which is not what you want. Been there. There was a deep, wide slot inside the forend wood which gave the factory an easy way to install the forward sling swivel. I filled that with modeling clay before my glassbedding operation to preserve that channel in case someone wants to add weight at a later date for whatever reason, such as rebarreling to a more powerful cartridge.

The wood along the sides of the barrel was open and needed filling but the inletting on the action was good enough that I could see no reason to glass bed it. Though I sealed the sides of stock against the barrel, I didn’t put any epoxy under the barrel except for the last 2" at the forend tip. Externals The Winchester’s rear sight was a folding U-notch blade with a huge white diamond to help you find the center. I inverted the Uand filed a 'V' into the blade and cold-blued the raw edge.

This vastly improved the ironsight picture. However, I can’t use them easily. The Henriksen was fitted with one of the old, formerly very costly, Bausch & Lomb Balvar 8A variable scopes with the adjustments in the base. I had no personal experience with those marvelous old telescopic sights and wanted to learn something about them. I made a diligent search

It was not. The spring was captive in the sealed unit, so backing out the adjustment screw completely gave a pull of over four pounds—too heavy for the author. The only way to lower it still further was to press out the pull spring and cut it. He then cut a small bit off the large end of the spring and reinserted it. This permitted an adjustment to just over three pounds.

Compared to the original Model 70 trigger this is apiece of lawyer-mandated junk, says the author. on e Bay and found a Balvar 8A and a set of bases for the Model 70, all in like-new condition, bought them, and put them on my rifle. The B&L bases are high enough that I can’t see the iron sights when I remove the handdetachable scope. If I ever want to use the iron sights I’ll have to remove the scope bases with a screwdriver.

As to the quality of the scope, it beats most of today’s common scopes for resolution, flare control, and overall usefulness. It also added needed weight to the rifle. I’m mighty glad I got it. I could see no reason to alter the externals of the stock in any way. The checkering is excellent, the pull length is ideal, the recoil pad is a good one by Pachmayr, the lines of the rifle are very good, and the overall finish on the wood is excellent. I would not gain anything by refinishing it.

The upper screw, for the sear engagement, was not touched. Testing When I tested the rifle in 2012 I shot it with 225-grain Hornady and Remington factory ammo and a lighter-bullet handload. In 2015 I tested with Winchester 225-grain and Remington 250-grain ammo and a 300-grain handload, so unfortunately I have no precise comparison between velocity with and without the lengthened leade or freebore.

I would expect a slightly lower velocity now with all factory loads because of the lack of immediate pressure jump due to the distance the bullet can travel without encountering resistance (the freebore). However, velocities between the Henriksen and the modified Winchester were very close to each other with all three bullet weights tried.

The Model 70 slightly beat the Henriksen with my hastily developed 300-grain Nosler Accubond handload but there’s lots more testing to be done to determine the best powder for this rifle and this bullet. My best guess is I’ll get close to 2400 fps with the 300 Nosler with the right powder. My current handload gives about 2300 fps. The Winchester has a 25-inch barrel. The Henriksen’s was 26 inches long. Trigger Pull I was not at all happy with the trigger pull on the Winchester.

It has a new-style trigger, not the good, old simple one. The adjustments for engagement and weight on the new one were epoxied in place. I scraped off the goo, found a small Allen wrench to fit (1/16"), and unscrewed the weight-adjustment screw. This did nothing. The pull was around I wanted three pounds. In order to get that weight

I had to remove the spring and cut off a loop. To get the spring out I removed the trigger assembly from the action and discovered there was no easy way to get the spring out. However, there was a hole on each side of the trigger assembly that let me view the spring. I used a suitable punch and pressed carefully on the spring and it came out the opposite side. One end was twisted tighter to catch a small protrusion on the back of the trigger itself and keep the spring in place.

The other end had a flattened loop and that’s where I carefully snipped a tiny bit of it off. Reinsertion was not hard and I took care to get the small end properly around the protrusion. My trigger gauge indicated I now had about 3.5 pounds. Good enough for me. Shame on Winchester for putting that piece of junk in this fine rifle. When you have one of the best and simplest triggers in existence, as the British would put it, leave well alone.

Or as we put it back in ‘74 working on the Viking Lander at White Sands, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!" The final test was to see how the accuracy stacked up to what it was before my careful glass bedding. To that end I duplicated the Reloder 22 handload and fired several threeshot groups. The original rifle with free-floated barrel got hundred-yard groups of 1.1 inch with that load. Imagine my joy when my carefully glassed rifle sprayed that load all over the paper.

Remington 250-grain loads gave similar results, leading me to believe there might be something wrong with my bedding job. Inspection revealed that I had omitted to relieve the bedding behind the barrel lump, which effectively made it a recoil lug. I relieved it at the back, checked everywhere else there might be binding, and tried it again. No luck. Next trick was to put a shim under the front lug to basically eliminate all the glass bedding work I had done. Yep, that did it.

I was back to the excellent accuracy I had before I started. I was now left with the task of removing all the glass bedding I had carefully installed and, very unhappily, that is what I did. There were several options open to me other than restoring the wood to the condition in which it left the factory. One was to bed the entire action, including eliminating the small rear bedding area and installing across bolt.

However, that looked like an awful lot of work for a huge "maybe." The "new" Model 70 has not one but two recoil areas. The action is clamped to the stock at the main lug and at the small rear lug by the two action bolts. As originally set up those were the only two places in the stock where the steel firmly met the wood. This setup introduces an entirely new means of holding the parts together.

In between, and in front of, the two stock bolts the steel can rock or sway or flex in ways that might well mandate the barrel fly free for best accuracy. The barrel is on the slim side and can flex easily. Another thing to try is to move the upward-pressure point back along the barrel channel until I find the "best" spot. I’m looking for half-minute accuracy, not because the rifle needs it but because I think it’s there for the finding. As of now I’ll have to look for it sometime down the road.

I’m extremely happy with the replacement steel parts and the extended throat and magazine. So, should you do this to your rifle? If you want to use heavy bullets, 275 up to 300 grains, by all means extend the magazine and throat. It’s not necessary to replace the aluminum trigger guard and floorplate with steel. You can remove the mag-box spacer at the back, put in a shortened ejector and lengthen the leade, and you’ll have a lot more rifle for not a lot more money.

If your rifle shoots like mine did before I glassed it, i.e., groups with all loads of 1.5 inches at the worst, you may choose to leave the barrel floating in space. Based on my experiments so far, that’s the right thing to do. AG American Gunsmith Reader Services 1.