I have an early Savage Model 99 take-down, which has been somehow altered to remove the take-down feature, although the outward appearance remains the same.

Can anyone suggest how this was done? The rifle is in caliber .22 Savage High Power and is quite accurate and effective on deer.

It was easy because the entire TD mechanism is in the fore end, the latch, barrel lock, and even the fore arm is used as a tool to unscrew the barrel. So if you threw away the original barrel and fore arm you could just fit a new barrel onto it. No alteration required.
Shame they did that though.

I obviously failed to make myself clear. The original barrel and forearm remain in place. They are not removeable, however.

You did say altered to remove the take down feature, which is solely in the forearm, as long as the barrel has not been replaced with one that is torqued in place. Still has to have the slots though.
Have you tried to unscrew it? It might just be rusted in place; the forearm is used as the tool to do so. Some of them are a bit tight.

Towsend Whelen, in his book "The American Rifle", discusses the Model 99 Savage and maintained that the take-down version was less accurate than the fixed barrel model. He mentions a take-down rifle in his possession which performed miserably until he sent it to Niedner and had a fixed barrel installed, which cured the problem.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the accuracy of my rifle and I am not at all interested in using the take-down feature, but curious to know if there is a way of deliberately changing the barrel to the conventional arrangement, other than allowing it to rust solid, which perhaps my barrel has done. I don't intend to find out by further efforts to disassemble it.

Your forearm has a latch but moving the latch doesn't release the forearm?

Releasing and removing the forearm does not loosen or unscrew the barrel; the forearm does not contribute to keeping the barrel tight; only keeps it from unscrewing.
Is there a way to deliberately make the barrel tight so as it will not unscrew by using the forearm/wrench to do so, short of rusting it in place?
Yes, peen the shoulder a bit so you can torque the barrel on in a more normal way.
But most TD owners want to show their friends how cool they are. I personally would definitely want it to work as designed so I could not resist taking it apart.
Yours is probably just gummed up from decades of sitting.
And since the sights are on the barrel, being a TD won't affect accuracy.

I know that, I have 2 of them.

I'm still not clear as to what's going on. If the forearm is original it has a latch. If the latch doesn't remove the forearm then he can't remove the barrel.

That's a different issue than if the latch does remove the forearm but the barrel won't unscrew. Then the barrel is either, gunked up or peened.

Add to that if the forearm doesn't come off how do we know the barrel is original, the s/n is under the forearm.

Ok, I though it was your rifle Bob. I never read the posts before I answer. Quicker that way.
Now reading more, the OP said he didn't want it to function anyway, so it doesn't make any difference what is actually happening.
In all I have seen, they are just gummed up from age. Forearm latch, and barrel threads too. Since he does not want to make it work as intended, we will never know.

No worries.

I always like the square hole in the forend to use as a wrench to remove the barrel, nice idea.

At one one time you could send a take down 99 to savage and they would affix the barrel to the receiver.

How they did it I am not sure.

This was done to eliminate excess head space problems that the take downs would develop

Ive seen a number of take down 99s that shot great, in fact I have and older one in 250-3000 that I would and have taken some turkey shoots so well they made me quite entering..It shoots one hole everytime...and any of you are welcome to come and shoot it, and get a cup of coffee..Want to gamble thats fine of just have some shooting fun..