Alaska State Firearm: Pre-1964 Winchester Model 70

The extractor is a large, fixed claw machined into the bolt face. It grabs the cartridge rim the instant the round exits the magazine and maintains positive control throughout the entire feeding cycle — all the way to the chamber and back out on ejection. The result: zero chance of double-feeding, and reliable extraction even in extreme cold, dirt, or rapid cycling.

The extractor is a smaller, spring-loaded component that snaps over the cartridge rim only when the round reaches the fully-chambered position. It is mechanically simpler and cheaper to manufacture. It works reliably under normal conditions, but lacks the positive control of CRF during the feeding phase. In field conditions — freezing temperatures, mud, rushed cycling — the margin for malfunction is wider.

Alaskan subsistence hunters and guides often face encounters with brown bears, grizzlies, or moose at close range in dense brush. A misfire or jam in that context has consequences that most hunters in the continental United States will never face. The controlled round feed is not a collector's preference in Alaska — it is a reliability specification that the legislature chose to enshrine in state law.

Winchester eventually acknowledged the 1964 changes were a mistake. In 1992, the company reintroduced the controlled round feed design under the Model 70 Classic designation. Current production Winchester Model 70 rifles use CRF. But the law specifies pre-1964 production models — the originals — because their metallurgy, tolerances, and craftsmanship represent a standard that the legislation chose to honor specifically.

Alaska State Senator Cathy Giessel of Anchorage introduced Senate Bill 175 in the Alaska State Legislature. Giessel, a nurse by profession and longtime Alaskan, framed the bill around subsistence hunting culture and the practical demands of Alaska's wilderness environment — not gun-rights politics. The bill's language reflects that framing.

SB 175 designates the pre-1964 Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle as Alaska's official state bolt-action rifle. The text of the bill states directly that this was the rifle that helped Alaska men and women "establish a firm foothold in the untamed and often wild Alaska wilderness" — language that grounds the designation in functional history rather than symbolism.

The bill does not designate a 'state firearm' in the broad sense used by Utah, Arizona, or Texas. It designates specifically a 'state bolt-action rifle' — a narrower, technically precise category. This distinction is legally and semantically significant: most aggregators, databases, and competitor websites classify Alaska's designation as a 'state firearm' and miss the specific action-type term entirely. The correct legal term is state bolt-action rifle, and the same wording discipline appears in Alaska's motto history.

Governor Sean Parnell signed SB 175 into law in 2014, making Alaska the fourth state to adopt an official state firearm designation (after Utah in 2011, Arizona in 2011, Indiana in 2012, the Kentucky Long Rifle in 2013, Pennsylvania in 2014, and West Virginia in 2013). Alaska joined a small but growing category of states that have taken the legislative step of designating an official firearm.

Alaska's primary natural history and cultural museum. Collections include historical objects from the settlement and exploration periods — the tools, including firearms, that were central to life in Alaska's interior. Located on the UAF campus, open year-round.

The official state museum covers Alaska history from the Russian colonial period through statehood. Its collections document the material culture — hunting tools, frontier equipment — of the territorial era that made the Winchester Model 70 the rifle of choice across the state.