.243 WINCHESTER

The idea was simple enough: Friend Cole Bender from PROOF Research offered to rebarrel my Winchester Model 770 .243 Winchester, a rifle I hadn’t shot in years. When returned, I would have a heavy-barreled .243 Winchester to replace my beloved Remington 700 BDL Varminter that was sold to pay some emergency debt long ago forgotten. I can say this rebarreled 770 will never replace that old Remington, but it has the potential to do some very useful things in the field.

- ROB BEHR

The Model 770 was only available in Winchester’s lineup from 1969 until 1971 and is certainly one of the lesser-known variants of the popular Model 70 rifle. It was intended to offer a more affordable option for hunters who wanted a Model 70. Overall, the rifle had a good reputation for accuracy and quality. Its long action was factory shimmed to facilitate the .243 Winchester case, which looks odd but functions without problems. Feeding is from a simple blind magazine using Winchester’s post-1964 push-feed action. In its time with me, the rifle shot modestly well, but it became an orphan as my kids grew up and my wife lost interest in hunting. Eventually it was relegated to the back of the safe and became the perfect “donor” rifle.

When I look back, it is easy to see when this project went off the rails. Bender asked me about the barrel contour while we were passing time at the SHOT Show in 2016. I can still remember telling him I didn’t care, as long it was heavy. I got what I asked for. When the package arrived, it contained my old barrel and the barreled action sporting a new PROOF Research stainless steel barrel. The package’s shipping weight was 10 pounds.

What I got was an absolutely huge, beautiful barrel. Stretching over 26 inches, it measured 1.200 inches at the shank and tapered to .990 inch at the target crown. The barreled action weighs in at more than 8 pounds. It was exactly what I ordered, but not what I had envisioned. It was, in a word, bigger.