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Longtime readers will recall an early post on The Gun Nut where we took them (yes them) to task for sending back bad rifles—and then pretending they didn’t exist. Seems like Field & Streams’ OFWGs have had a shot of truth serum. Here’s an excerpt from their review of the Winchester Model 70 Safari Express: “The spacing for scope-base screws at the rear of the Safari Express receiver is much closer than for a standard Model 70. (I brought the rifle along when I bought mounts for it just to make sure they fit.) Also, the magazine box fits very, very tightly in the receiver, and when I took the rifle apart to look at the bedding, I couldn’t get the damn thing back in. I called John Blauvelt, who advised me to persuade the magazine box with a rubber mallet, which I did, smartly, and it popped right into place.” $1400.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. What’s the old saying? ‘A fool and his money are soon parted’!? Now, I’m not saying that someone who pays $900.00 dollars for a new winchester model 70 is a fool, because a person is free to spend their money any way they like. But, I do think that value for the money is sometimes overlooked, or confused.
    My only rifle is a military surplus mosin nagant that I paid $89.95 for in April, 2010. My mosin works every time, (ok, so I have to slap the bolt around a bit!), but it works the way it was designed to, and happens to be reasonably accurate, with a clean bore, and good rifling.
    Did ‘ya ever notice that military rifles tend not to be the $900.00 dollar sporting rifles? (or, in this case, ‘the riflemans’ rifle’) I’m just saying!…..

  3. ”The spacing for scope-base screws at the rear of the Safari Express receiver is much closer than for a standard Model 70.”
    Yes they are and if you go to Weaver or Leupold and look up the correct rifle in their mount chart you’ll see they sell mounts spaced for the Model 70 Express rifles. How is this an issue? Sounds like someone made an assumption, which never works out does it?

    “Also, the magazine box fits very, very tightly in the receiver,…”
    So are you saying tight machining tolerances are a problem? When did that become a bad thing? If it had slid right in would you complain about a sloppy fit?

    I personally am looking forward to receiving my Model 70 Safari Express. Seems they are so popular there’s a wait, I ordered mine back in February. BTW it is going to cost me $1200.

  4. While late I agree with David. There are specific scope bases for the Safari Express (and have been for quite awhile) and why is a tight fit bad? I will have on next year at tax time.

  5. I just looked at the chart on Leupold’s web site and it doesn’t help. The base it shows for Safari Express have holes that are too far apart to satisfy the 5/16″ distance on the rifle’s rear base.

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