Winchester safety design flaw?

[Dave3006]

I remember reading a while back about Winchester Model 70s having a large number of accidental discharges due to a safety design flaw. Is there any truth to this? I seem to remember a number of lawsuits also?

Any input?

 

[M16]

I think you are confused with the Remington Model 700. There have been a lot of problems with the Remington safeties. The Winchester Model 70 probably has the best safety ever designed. A lot of custom rifles built on the Model 700 action have a model 70 safety installed on them.

 

[Nukem]

I can't comment on the lawsuit. But My model 70 has the type of saftey that cams into the firing pin and physically blocks it from moving.

 

[James K]

The flaw in the Remington safety was a failure of the sear to reset. That is the condition where the weapon (it doesn't have to be a rifle) is cocked with the safety on and the trigger is pulled. If the sear fails to reset after the trigger is released, moving the safety to the Fire position will allow the firing pin to move and the rifle to discharge.

This is due most often to work on the sear or cocking piece in an attempt to lighten the trigger pull. In the Remingtons, it was due to a slight shifting of the trigger block plus incorrect modification of the trigger pull. IMHO, the main cause of at least one death was failure of the gun owner to keep his rifle pointed away from a fellow human being. The idiot was playing with a loaded rifle in the back seat of a car and it went off and killed the man in the front seat.

BTW, failure to reset can occur with all bolt action rifles (including the Winchester 70) if attempted adjustments are made improperly.

Jim