I bought a 99 here recently and had it out in the sun this past weekend.

In the good light I saw, for the first time, a crack behind the top tang.

I removed the butt to see if the crack went through to the other side, and it does not appear to.

I immediately took some 100 grit paper and took a few hundreths of wood off the inletting, to make sure the top tank would not impact the leading edge and cause further damage.

The crack is faint...I never saw it inside the house in natural light (of course, my eyes are 62 years old!).

Any thoughts from the 99 crowd? The crack won't show up in an i-phone pic. I can barely feel anything with a fingernail.

thanks,

Tim

I had the same on one of my 99s. What I did was drill a small hole, say 16th in. diameter , on a diagonal at the crack where the bottom of the tang is and put a couple of dabs of epoxy in the hole. Dont drill too deep. no more than a 1/4 in at most. Be sure to relieve to area again so tang is shy of wood.
Did mine about 5 years ago and crack has not enlarged.
I am sure others will reply with more and better ideas.

I drill back into the tang the length of the tang, them off drill it a bit like a chicken track..The fill the hole or holed and glass bed the tang with two thickness of paper tape on the tang..set up and remove the tape and your repair will hold forever and the tang is oh so slightly free...Savage mod. 99s are notorious for that at the tang on top and the bottom probably needs some help befoe it starts to crack..Done this way hides the patch job.

Thanks guys.

Ray - Your description is of a pre-emptive fix to avoid cracks in the first place, right?

Sounds like a horizontal pillar-bed with a gap.

Once again a day late + a dollar short. I use Brownell's acra glas for that same project. Same story + same result.

Tarbe,
NO, I use that method for both, I might add that a lot depends on the crack (damage)...most of time if its not too old or has splintered out, it won't show, if its shrunk or not been protected, you have to make the crack look like grain flow basically..You have to use American injunity, there is no black and white how to..and sometimes you bite the bullet take whatcha got with a patch..but not often.

A stronger fix perhaps is a cross pin, and that shows no matter what..My fix can be modified to some degree, you could actually hog out all the wood underneath the crack and fill it with glass/steel..I would have to see the damage, depth of crack, spread of crack..sound complicated? its not so don't over think it, or it will just keep splitting..

Your repair sounds good to me, I would just keep an eye on it and if it doesn't hold, then repair it again...glass is stronger than wood and should hold better than the wood..Ive never had a glass repair not hold on a rifle.