In October 1932, Remington officials decided to produce a target grade, bolt action .22 caliber target rifle to compete with the Winchester model 52. They assigned this task to the in house design team of Crawford C Loomis, Aubrey L Lowe and Kenneth Lowe. These men set about creating such a gun, but this was not an easy venture owing to the complexity of designing a precision target rifle with the monetary problems of operating in the Depression era. Adding to the pressures associated with designing the new gun was Remington’s goal for the quality of the new rifle.

Despite the initial difficulties, the first prototype rifles were ready for trial in mid 1936, and a number of guns were sent out to small bore marksmen for competitive tests at Camp Perry. After heeding the marksmen’s advice and making last minute design changes, Remington finally announced the Model 37 Rangemaster Bolt action target rifle to the public on October1, 1936 with initial deliveries promised for January 1937.

“this is the rifle that thousands of small bore target shooters have asked Remington to build. It embodies their own ideas of a perfect target rifle, and they have long awaited this announcement, The Rangemaster has already demonstrated its superiority in the acis test of actual match competition. The rifle scored a sensational 200×200 with 14Xs at 200 yards!”

The announcement of the new Model 37 proved to be premature as Remington suffered delay upon delay in tooling up for the new gun. Even though 44 were made in 1936, production did not begin in earnest until mid 1937. The Remington price list for January 2 1937 announced the new Rangemaster to dealers would handle sales of the new rifle. The prices listed were $69.95 retail, $59.45 wholesale.

Finally Remington could compete head to head with Winchester’s model 52 target rifle in national level and international level competition.