The Model 70’s standard-setting three-position safety remains, although new refinements make it smoother to operate.

Stock bedding on the new Model 70s barreled actions has also been improved. The barrels are free-floated on all four versions. The synthetic stock Extreme Weather SS version features a full-length skeletal aluminum bedding block that is integrally molded into the stock during its manufacture.

The wood-stocked versions feature solid epoxy-reinforced precise individual bedding for the Model 70’s flat-bottomed receiver with integral recoil lug, which has always been one of the Model 70’s best features.

Model 70 barrels are cold hammer-forged, a process by which a billet of steel is molded around a mandrel by being stuck by a series of massive hammers. The mandrel has the rifling pattern on it, and during the hammering process the lands and grooves are impressed into the interior surface of the barrel. The barrel is threaded, target crowned and installed on the receiver, and the chamber is reamed and the bolt is headspaced.

The result is a Winchester guarantee of one-m.o.a. accuracy for three-shot groups for the new Model 70s, “using properly managed barrel, quality match ammo and superior optics under ideal weather and range conditions.”

Truth be told, I’ve never before been interested in the Winchester Model 70 all that much because, as legendary firearms authority Col. Townsend Whelen famously put it, “Only accurate rifles are interesting.”

Now before you join the mob of outraged Model 70 enthusiasts who are doubtless about to descend on my house with torches and pitchforks, let me explain.

The very first Model 70 I ever handled or laid eyes on was in 1964, new in a local gun shop. I’d just turned 18 and was looking for my first centerfire rifle to buy legally on my own. I didn’t know anything about pre-’64 or anything. All I knew was that the Model 70 .30-06 rifle on the rack looked and felt cheap, with pressed-in checkering, a grungy metal finish and a cruddy trigger pull.

The Remington Model 700 ADL .30-06 on the rack beside it had better wood, a better metal finish, a better trigger pull and cost about the same. I bought the Model 700. It shot just fine, and I was a Remington guy from there on.

Later, after I became a professional outdoor writer, I was assigned to review various Winchester Model 70s at various times, particularly in recent years, and nothing I encountered in the final era of New Haven-production Model 70s ever gave me reason to change my mind.

By and large, I never found a Model 70 that had as good a trigger or shot as well as any number of comparably priced bolt-action rifles from competing manufacturers. I confess I never really understood why so many people, particularly older shooters, seemed so passionate about the Model 70.

Well, now I do. If the current new-generation Model 70s are any true indication of what the original pre-64 Model 70s were really like--plus the addition of the new M.O.A. trigger and other refinements--I could easily become a Model 70 enthusiast myself.

I got a call from Winchester asking if I’d like to try one of the new Standard Deluxe .30-06 versions on a late-season Texas whitetail hunt last December, and I thought, well, I’ll find out if they’ve actually done what they say they’ve done.