Where I grew up was not rifle hunting country and there were no deer in the area to hunt so I did not have the opportunity to shoot a center fire until I bought my own at the age of 16, make note that this was before the Foolishness of GCA 68. It was a Marlin 336T in .35 Remington. I lived in Illinois at the time and my Dad and I migrated over the state line (about a mile from our house) to Wilmot, Wisconsin where we went to the original Gander Mountain, which was still a simple store front built into the front of the founders home. I don't exactly remember the price but I think that it was under $100 that I paid from earnings on a paper route. I did a lot of shooting with the rifle, unfortunately all target shooting for which I had to pad my shoulder. For me at that time shooting the 200 gr bullets available had a pretty hefty recoil. I didn't get a chance to go hunting with that rifle until I returned from Viet Nam and after the M-14 the Marlin kick didn't seem bad anymore. I didn't go hunting with it until 1972 around Marinette, WI. It was buck only back then and I saw about a zillion does, but no bucks. I hunted with it for a couple of years then traded even to a friend of mine who is a Wisconsin State Trooper. He got the .35 Remington and I got a Remington 600 in .243. He still has the Marlin .35 Remington, I sold the 600 to another friend in the Army and bought my first (still have it) Winchester Model 70 chambered in the .308 Winchester (7.62 mm NATO) The .308 is the first center fire rifle cartridge that I loaded on my own, using a recipe similar to the Lake City Match ammo that I was shooting in the Army. After glass bedding and floating the barrel of the Model 70 (Winchester did not do that back then) my reloads would shoot 0.5 MOA or less all day. It would shoot better than the issue Lake City Match ammo would, and the LC Match was good ammo.
I didn't know...
