Home Forums Lever Action Central Big Bore Levers 375 Winchester musing & hunting...

Your insights are correct. There's a soft spot in my heart for the .375 as well. Marlins, Winchesters, Savages, I liked them all, or aspects of each, but none was completely right. Quite a bit of game has fallen for me to a Savage 99 in .375.

The Savage was great because it had a tang safety and no hammer, carried well with it's wonderful round bottom receiver, and was super accurate. But it was a long 22" barrel and heavy forearm with a straight grip stock. The Marlin was great with it's pistol grip stock and shorter barrel but was a little heavier than I wanted, and I don't like a hammer so much. The Winchester, ah the little Winchester, light, short, accurate enough for 100 yard shooting with good young eyes, what a joy to carry, but it has a hammer too, and never did like scopes on the 94.

So, when opportunity met motivation, I put together the perfect for me .375. I know I've shown this photo a lot in the last few months, I guess it just proves my love for Winchesters baby .375 cartridge.

This is a Savage 99 "Brushgun" with a shortened barrel (from 22" to 18"). It now hangs on the end of your arm without dragging in the dirt, like the Winchester and Marlin versions, like a true levergun should. The straight grip rear stock was replaced with a 1950's lightweight 99F with a curved grip. That required fitting a curved lever in place of the straight one that came on the rifle. The curved grip made levering faster and more comfortable. The 1980's fat beavertail forearm was replaced with a lightweight 1940's forearm from a 99R. The 99R piece is shorter, which looked better on the newly shortened barrel, and is also narrower and lighter.

Chopping inches off the barrel and ounces off the stocks made the first Savage 99 .375 carbine a real joy to carry. A Weaver 2.5x scope was added to help with visibility.

It shoots 200 grain Sierra and 220 Hornady handloads into an inch from the back deck 80 yard range. This one will see a lot of woods time.









I was playing around with some loads for it to use on small game and put together these three-ball loads. They group 4" or so at 20 yards, I figure about the maximum effective range for them on small critters.