AR Colleagues,

I thought you might be interested in the latest firearms project between my son and I. One of the earliest memories I have of firearms and shooting is handling my older cousins Savage Model 99 lever action rifle back in the 1960's. I marveled at the lines and workmanship and could not wait until I got the chance to go hunting. As things often go in life however I ended up starting my hunting career with a Winchester Model 94, another classic Pennsylvania deer rifle, and moved on from there. However, I never forgot the Savage and after telling the story of my introduction to it to my son, we decided to resurrect that memory. We began scouring all the local gun shows and found a number of them as they were (still are) a popular rifle in Pennsylvania, but most of them had "issues". Finally a few months ago we found a Model 99 type EG with a 24 inch barrel made in 1941 in the classic 300 Savage. It was in good shape and the seller wanted a fair price @ $400 (note original factory cost in 1941 was $46.50!). The bore looked to be very sharp and bright and seemed to not have been fired a great deal, but the external metal had some traditional handling blue wear and the stock had "character" marks. It was perfectly serviceable as it was, but I decided to give it a new life as it had little real collector value. I sent the metal work off to Williams Gunsmithing in Michigan for a soft matte blue finish. The lever still had near original case coloring and it was left as is. While the metal was being blued, I stripped the wood, sanded it, filled a few minor dents too deep to sand out, stained it with a classic red/walnut stain and finished it with approximately 15 very thin coats of Tru-Oil. After thorough drying I rubbed the finish out to a soft satin sheen. I then recut and cleaned up all the checkering panels to full depth. The front sight was missing and I replaced it with a Marbles gold bead. Unfortunately this rifle was drilled and tapped for a scope which is common to many of these guns, but the workmanship was clean. Williams filled the holes in the receiver with screws plugs and blued them to match. I also installed a flip down rear sight from Williams and finally added a classic Marbles folding rear tang peep sight with three apertures.

Assembling the action upon return from Williams (excellent company to deal with BTW and a great bluing job) yielded what we think to be a classic, even if plane Jane, lever action rifle. Testing firing some Federal and Remington factory ammunition gave groups ranging from 1 ¾ to 4 ½ inches at 100 yards off sandbags. Our next steps will be to work up some handloads with 150 or 165 grain bullets (probably Nosler Partitions) and take it afield for the upcoming winter Pennsylvania deer season. We hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor and thanks for looking,

Paul

Nice gun, clean and has exceptional wood...The 300 is about ideal for whitetail and its a fair elk rifle also...My uncle used one for all his elk hunting in my youth and I always looked upon it as a magnum of some sort..I shot a 25-35 or a 30-30 in those days as did most everyone else..His 300 was special..Its just as good today as it was then.

Looks great! I would love to have one like that!

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Reed:
AR Colleagues,

I thought you might be interested in the latest firearms project between my son and I. One of the earliest memories I have of firearms and shooting is handling my older cousins Savage Model 99 lever action rifle back in the 1960's. I marveled at the lines and workmanship and could not wait until I got the chance to go hunting. As things often go in life however I ended up starting my hunting career with a Winchester Model 94, another classic Pennsylvania deer rifle, and moved on from there. However, I never forgot the Savage and after telling the story of my introduction to it to my son, we decided to resurrect that memory. We began scouring all the local gun shows and found a number of them as they were (still are) a popular rifle in Pennsylvania, but most of them had "issues". Finally a few months ago we found a Model 99 type EG with a 24 inch barrel made in 1941 in the classic 300 Savage. It was in good shape and the seller wanted a fair price @ $400 (note original factory cost in 1941 was $46.50!). The bore looked to be very sharp and bright and seemed to not have been fired a great deal, but the external metal had some traditional handling blue wear and the stock had "character" marks. It was perfectly serviceable as it was, but I decided to give it a new life as it had little real collector value. I sent the metal work off to Williams Gunsmithing in Michigan for a soft matte blue finish. The lever still had near original case coloring and it was left as is. While the metal was being blued, I stripped the wood, sanded it, filled a few minor dents too deep to sand out, stained it with a classic red/walnut stain and finished it with approximately 15 very thin coats of Tru-Oil. After thorough drying I rubbed the finish out to a soft satin sheen. I then recut and cleaned up all the checkering panels to full depth. The front sight was missing and I replaced it with a Marbles gold bead. Unfortunately this rifle was drilled and tapped for a scope which is common to many of these guns, but the workmanship was clean. Williams filled the holes in the receiver with screws plugs and blued them to match. I also installed a flip down rear sight from Williams and finally added a classic Marbles folding rear tang peep sight with three apertures.

Assembling the action upon return from Williams (excellent company to deal with BTW and a great bluing job) yielded what we think to be a classic, even if plane Jane, lever action rifle. Testing firing some Federal and Remington factory ammunition gave groups ranging from 1 ¾ to 4 ½ inches at 100 yards off sandbags. Our next steps will be to work up some handloads with 150 or 165 grain bullets (probably Nosler Partitions) and take it afield for the upcoming winter Pennsylvania deer season. We hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor and thanks for looking,

Paul

Dad, those pictures look great in the backyard. I always said the wood on this rifle was nice; plain, but nicely grained. I can't take credit for any of the actual gunsmithing work, but I did work the dealer over pretty well to give it to us for a good price!

It shoots like a dream, and I can certainly see why it was so popular during its lifetime. With some Nosler Partitions or Barnes TSX's, it would turn the ol' 300 Savage into quite the game-getter.

It may be time for a "lever-action safari" with this and the model 94...

Congratulations on a beautifully executed rebuild. The rifle looks new and you can't argue with the chambering.

I too acquired a 1947 vintage 99 in .300 Savage but not as pretty as yours.

When I was a kid (long ago and far away) one of my friends father had a mounted Kodiak Bear head in his den. Hanging on the wall beside it was a Savage model 99. Don't know what the caliber was, and I never asked. We moved away before I became interested in hunting or guns.

Lot of balls to go after a Kodiak with a 300 savage.

Wow!!! What a beautiful piece of work. You did a beautiful job breathing new life, as you put into this fine rifle.
I envy you!

I picked up an nice EG about 18 months ago. It does not look quite that nice, but then all I have done is clean it up a bit. The blueing is not as deep and dark , more shallow but original with no rust or wear. Stock finish was just cleaned up and rubbed out with a couple of coats of an oil wax mixture I use. I paid 425 for mine and it came with a nice old Weaver K-4 with Lee dot reticule.

I tried adding one of the Marbles tang sights but it did not fit the curve of the pistol grip well, too much gap.

What a beauty. I have one that was handed down from my Dad. Early 1900's vintage in .30-30 with a tang peep sight. Very sweety gun. I want to find one in .308 win.

Enjoy a beautiful rifle, it is still very relevent today IMHO.

beautiful thanks for sharing

That's a beautiful gun. I wish I had the intestinal fortitude to try that with my 99R.

Amazing

ZM

Nicely done !
That should be a fun rifle to hunt with. My former brother in law had a 99 in .308 while his dad had one in 300.
I like the rifle quite a lot. I personaly would love one in .250/3000.
...tj3006

I met my son over in Louisiana for the weekend where I have another house. Ouachita parish has an excellent public range and wee spent a few hours there Sat morning. The last thing I shot was my Mod 99 and put about 18 shots into about 1.6" at 100 yards, fairly fast with one flyer,probably my fault. It was getting hot but grouping did not vary.

I have owned a number of .308 in the neat littlel Savage M-99F and two in the Mod 99EG which are quite rare these days..If I ever find another EG in .308 I will buy it and keep it.

The 300 Sav is an excellent caliber and I would hunt anything on the NA continent with it, preferably with a good handload that can easily approach the .308 Win.

Paul, very nice Sir! Sounds like a fine father / son project.

i have 5 99 savages
one in 32-40
300 sav
284
two in 250-3000 take-downs with 410 barrels
all will be for sale soon

highcountry, sent you a PM.

AR Colleagues,

My apologies for resurrecting a dated thread but I thought you might be interested in me following up with my original post on "A new life for a Savage 99 EG in 300 Savage" as it gives me an opportunity to complete the story.

Rebuilding the Savage was an interesting project as I mentioned above and upon completion I undertook a reloading process for the 300 Savage. Winchester cases were reasonably easy to come by and I purchased a set of Redding standard dies. I adjusted the resizing die to just barely full length resize the cases and fire formed a set of cases with some bulk 150 Remington bullets on hand.

I worked through a series of loads using a 150 Nosler Partition bullet and some older 165 grain Speer Grand Slam bullets lying around my reloading bench. I tested IMR 4064, Winchester 760 and Reloader 15 powders. The best accuracy with both bullets fell to IMR 4064 and interestingly the same charge of 39.0 grains. The 150 grain averaged 2300 fps with accuracy of 1" at 50 yards and just around 2 ¼ inches for three shots at 100 yards. The Grand Slams were slightly less accurate and averaged about 2400 fps. If you are familiar with the 300 Savage ballistics you know that these are of course slightly low velocities, but I was not trying to turn the gun into a magnum and felt it would not matter significantly within the ranges of shots we are accustomed to in the Pennsylvania woods where we hunt. Testing the Savage on the bench proved to be challenging due to the very narrow forend and trying to find the most consistent way to place the rifle on the bags plus the Marbles Tang sight and bead front were challenging for these 54 year old eyes. I found I had to use a very large diamond target to get a good sight picture. I would be interested in other Forum members experience in testing the Savage lever action-do you rest on the forearm stock, action receiver etc?

The 300 Savage cartridge has a very short neck and even though the expander button on the resizing die was about 0.002 under bullet size I found that bullet grip was still not tight enough to securely hold the bullet. A Lee crimp die was used to fix this situation and interestingly without having done a full scale test, I now think the crimp may have even helped accuracy a bit.

After a series of range tests I decided to sight in the best Partition load for hunting (39.0 grains/IMR 4064/150 Nosler Partition @ 2300 fps) to be dead on at 100 yards which put it about 6 inches low at 200, the longest shot with this rifle I would attempt. Testing at 50, 100 and 200 yards gave a good knowledge of the actual trajectory curve.

Here is the 50 yard group




My son and I were out in the woods early on the first day of our season and we were lucky to have a fresh coating of snow to make the hunting a bit easier. After standing for two hours, I decided to make may my way over to him about 800 yards away when I was lucky to have jumped a small doe and a respectable 8 point (by western PA standards, not known for large racks) to within 70 yards of me. The tang sight was fast to get on him and my first shot was angled as he quartered away and he kicked up and took off at the shot. I missed him with my second shot and my third shot hit him in the shoulder to bring him down. He did not want to give up the ghost and required another two shots to finish him. That was very surprising that since upon field dressing him we learned that the first shot from the Partition penetrated from the rear of the paunch just in front of the rear ham, completely thought the gut, destroyed the heart and part of the lungs and exited after penetrating nearly 30 inches of deer. It is hard to argue with the performance of the Nosler and he should have been dead with that first shot, but was surprisingly persistent in his will to live.

Here is a photo of the buck and the Savage.



All in all it has been a pleasantly historical project to bring life back to a classic rifle made in 1941 and use it to successfully harvest a nice deer….harkening back to what my older relatives and friends have done years ago.

Thanks for listening and safe hunting,

Paul

Congratulations !
That has to be a very satisfying hunt.
You hunted for the rifle you wanted, cleaned it up yourself , and took a buck with the 1st day in the woods.
Great story and I repeat congratulations.
...tj3006

Sweet 99 and she shoots true. I doesn't get any better than that! BEAUTY!

Paul, that's a super little rifle you have resurrected. Your rifle's stock is one of the most slender and good looking patterns - with the schnabel fore end and the open pistol grip - that Savage ever put together.

Congratulations on doing the work in such fine fashion and in taking the redone 99 afield once more.

I love my little 99 carbine and would not trade it for love or money. One of my sons will have it one day - but not too soon, I hope!

I personally think having one drilled and tapped is just great adding a low powered scope to one makes them a much nicer rifle in my opinon. I use mine every year to kill deer.