THE Model 70 story begins with Winchester’s first entry into the modern, high-power bolt-action field, the Model 54, which was manufactured from 1925 through 1936. It was a good, strong rifle that gained a lot of followers.
The Big Red W had served its apprenticeship manufacturing Pattern 14 and Model 1917 Enfield rifles for British and American troops during World War 1. The Model 54 included features of the 1903 Springfield which had, in turn, been copied from the Mauser Model 98 and cost the American government millions for patent infringements.
Features included a coned breech, dual-opposed locking lugs, a broad non-rotating claw extractor and one-piece firing pin. The receivers were milled from a solid piece of forged nickel steel and the bolt was a one-piece forging with integral handle. Little has changed. Today, Model 70 receivers are still made the same way but are cut on a CNC machine to the correct dimensions.
By the 1930s, after analysing and working out the strengths and weaknesses of the Model 54, Winchester set out to improve on its shortcomings and designed the Model 70.
