Hello, all. I've posted this problem on other boards, but I wanted to see what advice folks here had to offer. In December, I bought a brand new Model 70, and it was unreliable right out of the box. The feed rails weren't made properly, and when the bolt was opened, rounds in the magazine would spring out and fall to the ground (not exactly controlled round feeding). This happened with ALL ammo, from A-Zoom snap caps, to reloads, to factory fresh, you name it. It went back to New Haven, CT, and I didn't hear anything for almost a month and a half. Finally, my gun shop called them, and it went to the repair shop that day (the date is on the work order). I got it back last Saturday, and tried it out.
Now, it will feed some ammo reliably, but only if it is absolutely minimum SAAMI dimension, especially in the shoulder diameter. Otherwise, same old problem. As far as Winchester/USRAC is concerned, the gun is fixed, because it worked with the particular type of factory fresh ammo they tried. I got the same story not only from Winchester's New Haven repair folks, but also from the local authorized repair shop (they haven't actually seen the gun at the local shop, yet). For instance, even though A-Zoom snap caps are machined to be well within SAAMI dimensions, and some folks even use them as action proving dummies, A-Zooms will not function in this rifle. They just fly out of the magazine when I open the bolt. This tells me that there is no safety margin for reliable function with this rifle, even with factory fresh ammo, but the repair shops said they will not do anything to make the rifle work with ammo other than what they have tried. As the gun wears over time, it may fail to work with anything. It certainly won't work with reloads, not 100%, so it's pretty much useless to someone that reloads exclusively (like me).
Does anyone have any ideas on how to get better service from Winchester, or should I just send this rifle down the road to someone that uses new Winchester ammo exclusively? I've never owned a rifle that didn't work, before, and I've never had any gun company fail to fix a problem to my satisfaction before.
