Winchester revives classic
Model 70 bolt-action rifle

By JIM MATTHEWS
Outdoor News Service

Good news for rifle buffs.
U.S. Repeating Arms Company announced this week it will revive production of the Winchester Model 70 rifle, the classic bolt-action repeater that has been known as “The Rifleman’s Rifle” to three generations of American shooters and hunters.
The new rifle will also be American made at a state-of-the-art factory in Columbia, South Carolina, owned by USRAC-Winchester’s parent company Fabrique Nationale (FN).
It was just last March that U.S. Repeating Arms-Winchester closed the historic Winchester manufacturing plant in New Haven, Conn. because of skyrocketing labor costs, arcane equipment, and environmental concerns at that facility. Production of all firearms made at that plant -- including the Model 70, the historic Model 94 lever gun, and the Model 1300 shotgun -- ceased production at that point in time.
The new Model 70s will be available beginning in 2008 in four basic models -- the Super Grade, Featherweight, Sporter Deluxe, and Extreme Weather -- retail priced from $1,000 to $1,200. The guns will have an upgraded, state-of-the-art trigger system, along with the Model 70’s time honored claw-extraction feeding and ejection system. and its three-position bolt safety.
The Model 70, first announced in 1936, was one of the most famous sporting firearms ever made and more than two million had been sold when production ceased last year. Rumors that the gun would be made by FN in Belgium were denied by the company at the time, but apparently the only part of the rumor that was wrong was where the gun would be made.
The other half of that persistent rumor was that the Model 94 would also be revived quickly, made at a Russian facility so that it could sold at a lower price point and be extremely competitive with other lever guns made in the United States and overseas.
There was no news announced this week on the Model 94, and company spokesmen were not available Wednesday.
The Model 94 lever-action repeater, first introduced in 1894 and often called "The Gun that Won the West," had been made by Winchester continuously for over 100 years. With over 6 1/2 million produced, it is the most popular lever gun ever made, and it seemed unlikely that Winchester would simply drop this classic from its product line.
When production was discontinued on both of these classic Winchester rifle models -- the Model 70 and Model 94 -- it sent many companies scrambling to try and fill that market niche void. Sales of Marlin lever guns, always a primary Winchester Model 94 competitor, and the Puma Model 92 lever guns, imported by Legacy Sports, have both jumped. The Kimber Model 84 and 8400 rifles, a modern upgrade of the Model 70, were probably the biggest beneficiaries of the demise of the Model 70 last year. The quality of the Winchester rifle had slipped dramatically the last few years it was made, and Kimber’s near-custom rifles were already filling the void with increasing sales. It was one of the few logical production gun options.
The new production Model 70s made in South Carolina are going to be priced about $300 to $400 more than the last guns made in New Haven for comparable models, although the new guns do have a number of upgrades. This will put them in the same price range as the Kimbers.
Last year’s halt to production of these two Winchester classics also sent the used gun market prices skyrocketing, with some pretty exorbitant figures being tacked on to pedestrian Model 70 and 94 models, even post-1964 firearms that were never considered to be in the same league as older guns quality-wise. That frenzy had moderated the last few months, and this news is likely to drive the prices back down to levels comparable to when both guns were still in American production.
Hunters and shooters can probably expect more gun news from USRAC-Winchester as we head into November when most of the new firearms are announced to the sporting goods industry for the coming buying year.

Huge sturgeon to 200 pounds
to be planted in Hesperia Lake

Two loads of sturgeon are scheduled to be delivered to the Hesperia Lake Thursday this week, according to Ed Rister, lake manager. The first load will be 3,000 pounds of the 15 to 25 pounders that proved so popular with anglers over the past year. The second load will consist of six fish from 50 to 200 pounds each.
Sturgeon were first planted in Hesperia Lake in April this year and fish to just over 40 pounds have been caught since the plant. They have proven popular with anglers, many who let the prehistoric fish go.
“They loved ’em,” said Rister. “These guys have been catching them all summer. We caught five two weeks ago -- and I’d thought they were all gone, but these guys catch ’em and let ’em go.”
After a half-year of experience on sturgeon now behind fishermen here, Rister said anglers are hooking most of the sturgeon on trout floating dough baits like Power Bait.
“The trout guys were hooking most of ’em up. It would take an average of 1 1/2 to two hours to bring one in,” said Rister.
Hesperia Lake has been planting trout since the lake’s water became cool enough a month ago. Rister said he’s been getting a lot of brown trout from Tim Alpers in the Eastern Sierra with some of these fish in the 6 1/2 to 8 1/2-pound range. Unlike the sturgeon and rainbow trout, the browns don’t eat the floating baits much, and he said inflated nightcrawlers, meal worms, and a variety of lures have been best for the browns.

Another 25,000 fingerling brown
trout planted at Diamond Valley

A total of 25,000 brown trout from four to five inches long were planted at Diamond Valley Reservoir in the past week. This brings the total of browns planted in this popular Southern California fishery to 40,000.
Mike Giusti, the Department of Fish and Game fishery biologist in charge of Diamond Valley, said the fish are being planted in hopes of creating a trophy trout fishery. The difficult-to-catch browns generally survive longer in even heavily fished waters and can grow to very large sizes.
The first brown trout were planted last October, when 15,000 fish were released in the lake.
Giusti said Diamond Valley’s current management plan calls for 50,000 subcatchable-sized (four to five inches long) brown trout to be planted every three years. The first plant was supposed to go in last fall, but the DFG could only come up with 15,000 fish, and the remainder were originally scheduled for planting in June. It took until fall before the DFG could get another 25,000 fish for this plant.

The news package is copyrighted and any use or reposting of the report, or portions of the report, is prohibited without written permission. Posting of links to the fish report on the Outdoor News Service web site is allowed.