Pennsylvania Game News - November 2020 - 14

By the early '60s, it had become evident the Model 70 had grown too costly
to manufacture. But instead of instituting
a comprehensive business plan that would
retain quality and maintain brand identity,
management at Winchester sought an
answer by redesigning the company's
flagship rifle, making it less costly to
produce. It was an initiative led by account
managers who hoped reputation alone
would buoy change.
In October 1963, Winchester unveiled
the new Model 70 starting with serial
number 700,001. What resulted was
disastrous. The new push-feed model
was not the same rifle, and shooters and
gun writers let Winchester know it. It
took the company four years to make
improvements, but the damage was done.
In reality, the post-1968 push-feed model
wasn't all that bad, and hunters killed a lot
of deer with new Model 70s. They still do.
Winchester in 1967 also brought out a
more affordable version of the M70 - the
M670. This move alone would seem to
elevate the newer Model 70.
Winchester's complex history, like
many other venerable firms, has involved
various ownerships and parent groups, but
for all intents and purposes, it continues to
make certain Model 70s with controlled
round feed (CRF), and they are great
rifles. On the other hand, CRF isn't as big
of a deal as it used to be, and the dependable push-feed actions, and other hybrid
designs are lighter.
I've used seven different M70s from
five different decades. All performed
admirably, but the only one I kept is an

14

XTR Featherweight push-feed 6.5 X
55 that shoots quarter-size groups with
Norma's 154-grain Oryx ammo.
Waiting in the wings for more than
a decade, Remington's Model 700 was
released in 1962. In a clever marketing
move, Remington debuted it in the new
7mm Remington Magnum cartridge.
The 700 was an update of the M721 and
M722. Sales of those models had faded a
bit as hunters desired more refinements,
and the M700, featured in ADL and the
higher-grade BDL models, was exactly
what hunters envisioned.
With more than 5 million rifles sold,
the M700 became the most popular boltaction sporter ever, and the all-time most
popular bolt-action in Penn's Woods.
As an impressionable 14-year-old
hunter in 1965, I became enamored with
a racy-looking carbine that the ad touted
as "6½ pounds of bolt-action fury." It
featured a laminated stock of alternating
slabs of beech and walnut with pressed
checkering and a short, 18½-inch barrel
with a ventilated rib. The gun was Remington's brand-new Model 600 Magnum
chambered for the potent new .350 Remington Magnum cartridge that offered
"3,260 foot-pounds of brush-bucking
energy."
While passing the corner hardware
one day after school, I stopped dead in
my tracks when I saw one displayed in
its side-street window. At $144.95 it was
beyond my means; besides, I already had
a Model 94, and no one needed more than
one deer rifle. (Who came up with that?)
The M600, based on Remington's
Pennsylvania Game News - November 2020

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