I was recently handed down a model 99c chambered in 22-250 rem I am not familiar with the function of this rifles safety, my question is about the safety. It has a top tang safety and on this rifle it will not let me cycle the action to chamber a round with the safety on the lever will only cycle if the safety is off, is this normal? or is there a problem with the safety?

It does not seem safe that the safety has to be off to chamber a round since it would be easy to touch the trigger accidentally while cycling the action shut with the lever. This is even more of a problem since this rifle seems to have a very light trigger pull, which from what I am told is not that typical of the model 99.

When the tang safety on a Savage 99 is in the "Safe" position, it locks the lever closed.

Thanks for the info, the safety is working properly then.