well fellas, i was in my local gun shop asking about what was available as a donor rifle for my 358 win conversion i had planned. young john behind the counter (knowing i have a soft spot for model 70's ) , says hang on a minute, disappears out the back of the shop and comes back out with a gem of a old winchester . i looked it over and bought it without hesitation . it has really nice walnut stock, usually these cheaper 70A wichesters have a plain pine looking timber stock. before heading of to a smith for the rebarrel in 358 , i thought i would get a box or two of ammo and have a play at the range . pulled it down for a clean and a trigger tweak and headed out to see how it shot. just bought some 80 grain rem box ammo cause it was cheap .not all that flash, 2 1/2" vertical string groups. hmm, don't have too much on, i'll just float the barrel . groups closed to a more even spread of around 1 3/4" . yeah okay, i'll remove the bulky front sight and see if it improves ( removing the front sight did improve a ruger 308 scout rifle i had by a fair bit ) . i bought home the gas torch from work that we use for soldering, but couldn't get enough heat out of it to remove the front sight . hmm. stuff it ! i was going to rebarrel anyway, where's the 5" grinder
at this point i will state i am a sheet metal worker by trade, and have done a lot of different fabricating jobs over the years , including stainless stell fabrication and polishing. i carefully ground down the front sight till it was super thin and i could see the two spots of solder holding it , then just lightly and carefully ground at those spots with a barrel grinder till it was off . a bit of hand sanding with 1200 wet and dry and a cold blue job and i was done, with hardly a mark to be seen . and yes it grouped smaller again and with more consistancy. at this point i decided it was a useful caliber for what i generally hunt, and a set of dies were in order . with the 87 vmaxs load i came up with after only 20 reloads and a bit of research and advice from a mate who shoots a 243 , i could put the second shot through the first hole , only being slightly off with the third . a bit more developement and this old original barreled winchester should be a great shooter. might even bed it ...
i thought i would put this little exercise on here for others to maybe get some ideas on "tunning" their rifles . that and i'm off work sick and bored sh!tless