Bart
No one (OK a few old die hards) is building competitive guns for any discipline anymore on Model 70 actions as the FIRST choice. Everyone is going the custom route. Tubbs 2k, Barnards, Kelby, etc and that is in Highpower. Now why is that, IF the Model 70 is the most accurate action in the world?
The model 70 is a good action and was easy to get to shoot good in its day, however, you never see one on the line anymore as a "New" gun in either highpower or Fclass much less anything else. Its hay day was when there were not a lot of custom actions on the market, and that is not the case today.
That is what was meant by "rules" changing.
Understand you love the Model 70 but if it was that **** accurate it would be the action of choice in every accuracy discipline today and the cold hard facts are it is not! Other actions are out now that are better and cheaper than a "fixed up" model 70. I love it to as a great hunting action but I am not going to build an accuracy gun on one today. Flat out economically dumb decision and that is not even a disputable fact.
Do not deceive yourself that just because you love it that makes it better than the others. Competititors today do not care about what worked 20-30 years ago, we have other actions that are easier to make shoot well (ie take out of the box, barrel and shoot).
I shot with the AMU in the mid 70s and it was the action of choice for the long range due to action rigidity and bolt lockup over the 700 and weatherby actions by the AMU armors. Custom actions have fixed those issues and are ready to go with no work. So why in the world would anyone want to buy a model 70 action now, spend all the money fixing it and the action would be inferior (at best maybe equal) to what they can buy with no work and the value is automatically half what they just spent? Dumb dumb
If you are thinking that BR rifles are not the most accurate then you have never gone one the line and shot against them for sure. Bring the model 70 out to any match and they are all over now, and as long as it is under 17 lbs shoot in the light gun class and see what it can do versus talking about it.
There is one competititor in 1k BR shooting a model 70 and yes it is accurate after a lot of work, but he has had it since he started and even he states if he builds another gun, he would not use that action. It can be done but at a cost that is not justified compared to new actions.
Bottom line is look at the current equipment lists today and forget what was 20 years ago. You are living in the past glories of the model 70.
BH