A Gun a Week: Remington Model 760 Gamemaster, .35 Remington

Remington Model 760 gamemaster, .35 remington.

If you ever been to a pawn shop, and a rifle catches your eye, you know that horrible feeling you get when the guy behind the counter flips the tag for you (you always have to ask--no gun store is smart enough to display hang tags with the prices facing out) and you see how much they think their rifle is worth. You know and I know and the guy behind the counter knows that the shop has paid someone around fifty cents on the dollar for that rifle, so why do they always ask for exorbitant amounts on rifles that they've pretty much stolen from someone who needed quick cash? I'm not real sure, greed I reckon.

Anyway, such was the case back in 2006 when I spied this Remington Model 760 Gamemaster on the rack among all the Mossberg pump shotguns. I think at the time they wanted $399.99 dollars for it...as if anyone'd be fooled by the missing penny. I recoiled in horror and amusement. The 760 was obviously old as dirt and was missing its magazine which meant right away, if someone bought it, he or she'd be on an epic quest to find a vintage magazine to fit it.

These rifles were made on the same frame as Remington's 28 gauge Wingmaster shotgun, so the feel of the stock and the weight and the position of the safety and trigger were very familiar to me. There wasn't much bright bluing left on that receiver, but there wasn't much more than faint surface rust either and just a few scratches. The old original sights were still intact, though I knew I'd scope the thing--as old as it was, it was drilled and tapped for a scope mount for sure.

Same frame as a 28 gauge Wingmaster so all the controls are very similar.

I asked to fondle it which means I was really interested to see it. These days I'm at a point in my life where I don't need to fondle guns to shop for them. I mean, you fondle one Model 700 or Model 70 or Glock pistol, you've fondled them all. No, just tell me how much you want for it. But at the time, I wanted a closer look for sure. I wanted to see what chambering it was, and seeing that it was chambered in 35 Remington made me really want it. 

You see these pumps, the "Yankee Lever guns" all the time in plain-Jane, boring old 30-06. And you see those rifles all the time for sale around the $350.00 mark. So dull in fact that a guntard like me wouldn't even want one of the old ones in 30-06. No, all the cool ones are in old-school numbers like 300 Savage, 257 Roberts, 244 Remington and, naturally, 35 Remington. I've seen one since I bought mine in 270 Winchester, which is also pretty neat, again, giving that it isn't in that ol' has-been 30 caliber. 

Old timers trick to reverse the rear sight for scope mounting...that way you you'll not lose it.

So I made an offer of $250.00 and was laughed at by The Man...that was 2006.

It's a pawnshop in Kernersville, NC and I used to stop by every quarter or so to check things out. I lived in Stokesdale, NC and it was on the way to Target, Walmart and BoJangles--pretty much everything you need to survive, so it was as easy as pie to stop in and see what else they had. Once I stopped in, and the normal guy behind the counter was gone, replaced by another guy. I asked him about the rifle again, and he handed it to me unprompted. By now they had stuck a magazine, or tried to, from a different model Remington, a 742 Woodsmaster! It was literally jammed in and since it was designed for a semi-automatic version of this same rifle more or less, it didn't allow the function of the slide at all.

I told the guy it wasn't the correct magazine and looked at the price tag. It was holding fast at $399.99 so I made an offer of $250.00 to the "new guy" and was laughed at...that was 2007. In fact, I think I did walk out of there with a Model 700 in .243 Winchester which, by some crazy misalignment of the universe was being offered at a reasonable price!

The model 760 was introduced in 1952 and ran until 1981. Only about 1.03 million were made! I knew this gun was an early one by the rather plain forearm and hard metal butt plate. I think they call it a corncob fore end because it sports simple cuts to allow a good pumping grip and it resembles a cob of some kind. I had shot a former customer's (in 300 Savage--very high cool factor) and his was around the same age and so they were very similar in appearance and wear. And since I had coveted his granddad's rifle then, it only made me want the pawn shop's even more.

Corncob fore arm says "old school".

I stopped in again several months later and asked about the rifle. The "new guy" was still there and so was the rifle. Only now the pump-o-matic had lost the mismatched magazine for the empty hole again. If anything, this was actually better. Imagine buying it and getting to the range and finding out it wouldn't work; caveat emptor I reckon.

I don't remember the price at that time, but I offered him $250.00 and was laughed at by him and the owner....that was 2008. I did find a nice Western Auto version of a Marlin 336 in 30-30 Winchester which, because it didn't say Marlin on the barrel, was offered for a very reasonable price--$250.00 as I recall.

As you know, 2008 brought a grinding halt to everything alot* of us knew about building houses and making money. It was like waking up with amnesia--overnight everything had changed and I had to learn many hard lessons. The one lesson I always repeat is, "I'll never take money or work for granted again."

Aluminum (I think) butt plate. In 30-06, that'd be brutal on your shoulder.

I bet I didn't step foot in that pawnshop for two years; why would I? I didn't have any money to spend. I'd drive by and think about it but never got out of the truck. But when things started looking a little better, I thought about stepping in again. And when I did, there was the little rifle waiting for me. I flipped the tag to check the price: $299.99! They were getting closer!

I smiled and made my offer to the owner himself--I guess they had to get rid of some people on account of the depression. I offered $250.00 and was laughed at by the owner....that was 2011.

In the meantime, I had dropped deer with the .243 I bought there. I had dropped deer and even taken my buddy Bill on his first deer hunt with the Western Auto 30-30 I bought there. So when Christmas was coming up the next year, I knew I had to get myself something to ease the pain of buying everyone else I know and love something they wanted.

And when I walked in the pawnshop that last time, I explained myself to the plucky "new kid" behind the counter. I knew that the gun had been there for six years and told him. I knew a new magazine for it was going to be a fifty dollar ordeal and I told him. I laid it all out for him, and he took my case to the owner. When the owner looked at the back of the tag and saw it was a six-year-old pawn, I knew I had him. I offered him $250.00 and he took it...that was 2012!

Sure they got me for tax, of course they did, but in principle, I got that fricking rifle for $250.00! And it only took six years. As soon as I got it home and got a Leupold 4x M8 scope on it, there was a photo-op in the bathroom--nothing pervy, that room just had the best bank of bulbs in the house.

Facebook photo op shortly after i bought it. Note missing magazine.

That weekend it was taken to the range to get zeroed in. Around this same time, I had some of Hornady's Leverevolution ammo left over from previous hunts with a Marlin 336CS in the same chambering, so it was a no brainer to use it. Obviously, the 760 is vertically fed from its magazine (which I was missing when I zeroed it--think, single shot rifle) so I didn't have to shoot ammo designed for a tubular magazine fed rifle like the Marlin, and some day I might just whip some ammunition up from the bench with good old fashioned spitzer bullets, but I did for that hunting season. That ammo is really good stuff for any rifle in 35 Remington. They also make it for 30-30's as well, and I can't say enough good things about those two offerings.

The next weekend, after buying a modern magazine for the 760's progeny, the 7600, the rifle and I were in a tree stand. The newer magazine was very difficult to install and extract, but it would have to do for the first hunt. The cartridges fed flawlessly from the magazine even though it was a true pain in the fingers to get the thing in or out of the receiver. Sadly, I have three modern mags for the rifle which I probably never use again. Later I found a dusty old vendor at a gun show and he had a dusty old magazine that fit my rifle perfectly for, you guessed it, fifty dollars...turns out my gun was $299.99, but I digress.

And when the gang of does stepped out of the thick woods to graze and cross the logging road I was perched above on the farm in Eden, I picked the biggest one, the one staring intently and knowingly at me, and took her down instantly and humanely with a neck shot. She was inside 100 yards, but further than fifty away which is the perfect range for any rifle chambered in 35 Remington. When I walked up to her I took a picture of her with the rifle not to gloat, but to document what she looked like before I killed her, to document when and where I was and with which rifle I had killed her. I think it's important to remember you killed something, to "make a mark" that you'll always have, and thanks to the internet, I will.

The evening light makes phone photography tough.
It was good to get the old gun into the woods again.

I did in fact take a copy of that picture back to the pawn shop to show the guys what I had done with "their" rifle. I wanted them to know I wasn't some crackpot guntard that wanted the rifle for a low-ball price just to tuck it away in a vault forever. I wanted them to know I took an old hunter hunting again. A quick Google search had told me my gun was made in 1954, and I was happy I got it off the rack and back out into the woods to do what it was designed for.

Nature-made tree stand.

I hunted with it again the next year down on federal game lands--I could tell you where, but then I'd have to kill you--and watched a dopey young six-pointer mosey right by me from the top of a busted down tree. It was a natural deer stand, and from atop it, I watched that buck the whole time he was in 35 Remington range through the scope as he ambled by but never shot him. Maybe I was just enjoying sitting in the woods watching the first big, black squirrels I had ever seen in the wild dig around in the leaves, or maybe it was that old realization that the fun's over as soon as the smoke clears, and the truck was parked a long long way away to drag a deer.

Scope caps up, this dog will hunt.