Winchester Model 70 serial numbers by year & pre-64 cutoff

What year was your Model 70 made?

Need help finding the serial number?

Look up a serial number and print a one-page record sheet: the date and its sources, the status by age, the model in brief, and the auction price range.

Winchester Model 70 value: what it sells for at auction

Enter your serial number above to highlight the price categories that fit the estimated date and see recent sales of this model in those categories.

These prices come from 901 Winchester Model 70s sold individually at Rock Island Auction Company (356), Morphy Auctions (148), Poulin Auctions (120), Redding Auction Services (160), and Amoskeag Auction Company (117) between Sep 2023 and Sep 2026. The age-group rows use the auction companies' categories: antique, curio and relic, or modern.

The typical price is the middle price, also called the median. Half sold for more and half for less. The middle 50% range leaves out the lowest quarter and highest quarter of prices. The wider 80% range leaves out the lowest tenth and highest tenth.

We leave out listings described as deluxe, special-order, engraved, restored, or commemorative, and other exceptions in the value guide. Commemoratives are priced on their own page. Wear, repairs, original parts, and factory upgrades can make a particular gun worth more or less. These figures are a comparison, not an appraisal of your gun. Looking for a 30-06 Springfield Model 70? These rows combine all ammunition types listed for the model. They do not give a separate price for 30-06 Springfield.

Prices by version

Sales whose listing names a version, grouped by that version, such as rifle or carbine (a shorter rifle). These rows combine all ages.

Prices by caliber

The cartridge or gauge can change what a Model 70 sells for. These rows use the 520 sales whose listing names one, with old and new names for the same cartridge counted together (the .30 WCF is the .30-30). They combine all ages.

Prices are in US dollars and include the buyer’s premium, the auction company’s fee added to the winning bid, where the house charges one; Redding charges none. They are not the amount the seller receives. A dealer’s offer or private sale price may differ. The full picture, model by model →

Pre-64 or post-64?

Pre-64 means the original Model 70 design, made before the 1964 redesign. Its number sequence has no letter before the digits and ends at 581,471 in Madis's tables. The new sequence began at 700,000 in 1964. Numbers 581,472–699,999 are a gap in the sequence; check the full marking if your number falls there.

The number range is a clue, not proof of when the whole rifle was finished. Some older receivers were used for assembly or repairs after 1963. Also compare the rifle's features:

• The extractor is the metal claw that pulls a used cartridge case from the barrel. The pre-64 design has a long claw along the bolt and is called controlled-round feed. The 1964 redesign uses a small hook and is called push feed.
• The Classic line, introduced in 1992, brought back the long claw. These rifles are marked CLASSIC on the barrel. A long claw alone does not prove a rifle is pre-64.
• A prefix is a letter before the number. The G prefix began around serial 920,000 in late 1968. Later Classic rifles used some lower G numbers, so G120000 and 120000 belong to different sequences. Include the G in your lookup.
• If a seller's pre-64 claim conflicts with the number or features, have the rifle checked before relying on that claim.

How to tell a pre-64 Winchester: the Model 70 and Model 94 side by side

Where the serial number is

High on the right side of the receiver, the metal body just behind the barrel. The stamp is on the curved front section, called the receiver ring, so it can look almost on top.

Winchester Model 70 serial number: where it is and how to read it

Where these dates come from

Winchester Model 70 serial numbers by year

The full Model 70 serial number chart, one table for each source available here. Each row gives the numbers that source assigns to a year. Both the first and last numbers are included.

What to know about Model 70 serial numbers

• These figures come from George Madis's tables. They are not the last serial number of each year in the factory records at the Cody Firearms Museum, and they are not counts of finished rifles.
• Serial numbers 581,472–699,999 were never used in George Madis's tables. Treat a rifle with a number in that range as suspect.
• You cannot turn the last serial number into a production total.
• A date from the factory records at the Cody Firearms Museum is the date the serial number was stamped on the receiver. Receivers were not built into rifles in strict number order, and one could sit in stock for months or longer.
• The G prefix started to appear around the 920,000–930,000 range, after the Gun Control Act of 1968. George Madis's tables say only that it appears after 1968.
• USRAC and FN later reused low G numbers that had never been issued, for controlled-round-feed "Classic" rifles. So G120000 is not from the same era as plain 120,000. Some project and custom-shop blocks appear to be out of numerical order.
• Receivers with pre-1964 numbers were sometimes built into rifles or used for factory repairs after 1963. A replacement receiver fitted after 1968 may have had a G added separately.
• 581,471 is the accepted last number of the pre-1964 run. It does not prove that every receiver below it became a finished rifle before 1964.
• Winchester calls its own customer-service papers rough retyped reference material, not a complete set of original records.
• No reliable public serial list covers the years after 1992.
• Winchester's own customer-service list is a retyped compilation, not the original records. The list itself says that no complete original serial record from 1866 onward is known to exist, and that some of its figures are estimates.

Other Winchester bolt-action rifles

• Model 431948–1957
• Model 521919–2002
• Model 541925–1936
• Model 561926–1931
• Model 571926–1938
• Model 751938–1958