Rifle looks nice and new. The bluing on my old 760 is worn and gone in some places from hundreds of hours of carrying. When I was young they would drop us off at the top of the mountain at 0-dark 30, and we would come out on the road at the bottom of the road after sundown. As the days warmed up the gloves came off and the hot, sweaty hand clutched around the magazine area wearing the bluing away. A lot of the country we hunted was covered with thick Chaparral, conifer thickets. At times this required some belly crawling; I have felt that a shorter, barrel rifle would be an asset in this situation. Belly crawling became popular after one of the guys crawled up on two bucks in their beds.
Admittedly I have never been tempted to have the barrel chopped off. The knowledge that when I finished the crawl I might be looking 200-yards across an arroyo at a buck makes me want to retain the 22-inch barrel.
I have a soft spot for Remington M760. I keeping thinking I should off to buy my brother’s 760 in 300 Savage, because I like the rifle and the cartridge.
Your rifle in 35 Rem., has to have a lot of guys drooling.
Velocity variables:
When shooting a Savage 110 and a Remington 700 across the Chrony I found the Savage barrel to be faster. I did the test at 6700-foot elevation and 4100-foot elevation. It was clear the Savage was a faster. The loss of velocity did not affect accuracy, and the rifle was still effective on deer. In fact I have thought about picking up a 24-inch barrel to increase velocity, but the thought is deeming because the rifle is a deer getter. Both rifles have 22-inche barrels.