One significant thing about the Model 69 series is there were no serial numbers. That’s never bothered me like it apparently does other people.
The little 5-round magazine is slightly curved to compensate for the angle of the rimmed cartridges. Mine has never locked up or thrown a round. The rear sight is adjustable for elevation and the front sight is dovetailed into the barrel about an inch back from the muzzle.
When I was in my teens, I refinished the stock, removing what seemed like some kind of varnish and replacing it with a hand-rubbed oil finish. I also put a thin white spacer between the hard plastic buttplate and the wood to dress it up a bit. The Winchester logo is molded into the buttplate.
The trigger on my 69A is a bit stiff but it breaks clean. Anything in the sights is going to get hit. I’ve shot grouse in the head with this rifle and more bottle caps than I can remember. That was my daddy’s rifle.
Winchester Wildcat
It Ain’t Your Daddy’s Rifle
Winchester Wildcat is a new smallbore entry. The rifle is a semi-auto with
a 10-round magazine and plenty of features. Photo: Winchester
When Winchester recently announced a new .22-caliber semi-auto rifle called Wildcat,” I had to wonder what my dad might think, because his Winchester bolt-action Model 69A — passed to me as a youngster — was the rimfire.
By today’s standards, the Model 69A is a homely anachronism, a simple 5-round sporting rifle modern for its times and deadly accurate. It was the gun with which I learned to shoot and even today with thousands of soft lead bullets into paper targets or small game, it’s a nail driver because the rifling looks virtually brand new. A decades-long diet of soft roundnose lead or plated hollowpoints hasn’t hurt the bore and I’ve kept it clean inside and out.
Dave’s dad holding the Winchester Model 69A bolt-action rifle many decades ago.
I’ve got an old photograph of my dad as a young man holding this rifle. I haven’t got a clue when the image was snapped but it’s plain to see he is holding the same rifle now occupying a place of honor in my gun safe.
Once, when I was no more than 6 or 7 years old, I watched as he rested this rifle on an old cedar fencepost and shot dead a cottontail rabbit on the hop at about 25 yards along an old road in the middle of an alder stand. The bullet struck the bunny in the neck and that night I had my first bite of wild meat.
The Model 69 was introduced in 1935 and the 69A came along a few years later as a mid-priced model for just the kind of uses to which my dad put it. On the left side of the stock is a small dimple in the wood I can only presume was worn there as it rested on the handlebars of a bicycle.
Model 69A Winchester can do wonders with a brick of quality ammunition.
Winchester produced more than 355,000 of these plain-Jane rifles, including a target model, and the series was discontinued in 1963. I’ve seen some specimens of the latter still in use at rifle ranges for teaching youngsters to shoot, and for assorted competitions. They seem to last forever.
The first models had a cocking knob at the rear of the bolt doubling as a safety. The 69A has a safety lever on the top right of the receiver behind the bolt. The magazine release is on the left side of the stock, a button projecting out of the stock above the trigger.
The worn stock shows a dimple presumably made by the handlebar of a
bicycle when it was still okay to see a youth riding down the road with a rifle.
Close-up of Wildcat’s receiver shows the top rail and camo finish. Photo: Winchester
Now Winchester has come up with the self-loading Wildcat and it’s just the thing to appeal to a whole new generation of smallbore fans. Where the old 69A had a 5-round magazine, the Wildcat boasts a 10-round rotary magazine and it will accept after-market magazines that fit the 10/22.
It’s got a polymer receiver with an integral Picatinny-type accessory rail on top, and a 16-½“ button-rifled barrel with a recessed crown. It’s threaded at the muzzle for a suppressor and comes with a knurled thread protector cap. The ramped post front sight is fixed and the rear sight is a Ghost Ring model.
Winchester designed the Wildcat with an ambidextrous safety and the bolt locks open after the last round is fired.
Dave’s son cradles the same rifle, a link to a bygone era and the grandfather he never met.
The stock is polymer and features a TrueTimber Strata camouflage finish. Winchester supplies two Allen wrenches to allow removal of the stock and for sight adjustment. The stock features eyelets fore and aft for a sling.
If the Wildcat is even half the rifle in terms of accuracy and reliability as my dad’s gun — which became mine and will one day belong to my younger son — Winchester’s got another winner on its hands.
