My wife owns a Savage 99 lever in .300 Savage. She swears by that rifle and has owned it forever. I just kind of pooh-poohed both the rifle and the cartridge.
Well...one day I took it to the range on a preseason sight in mission and....by gosh she was right. ( Kind of scary when your better half is right.) I put that rifle through its paces and it impressed me. Yes I know that the .300 Savage is a modified pre-.308 308. But it is an good round though underemphasized. I worked up a 180 gr load for it that shoots so well it is scary.
To make a long story short..I now have two of my own in .300 Savage. It is probably the best lever action ever designed and undoubtedly the strongest. It has no peers as a saddle gun if you are a horse hunter. (those bolt actions will wear a scar on your leg in a hurry unless you stow them butt forward.) It will outperform a 30-30 and give an 06 a run for the money.
The savage will never replace the swede mauser in my affections...but if you can pick one up at the right price I recommend you do it...you will be pleasantly surprised. This is one situation where I was happy to be wrong.

swede

Il rather stay with guns, girlfriends gave me too much trouble, but that is another story.

I bough a m70 270 win to rebarrel to 300 Win, in the end liked it so much that I still use it

Yeah, but it usually winds up being pretty expensive...

Bought my M99F in .284 Winchester last spring for $330. Bargain? I certainly think so.

It's now a .35-.284. Very sweet rifle.
Jerry/AK

Betcha can't buy just one...M99 that is.

Be careful, you are on the verge of becoming hopelessly addicted to the M99's wonderful ways. Once you are drawn down the slippery slope there is no hope and the only cure is more M99's

ZM