I've made up my mind for my purposes. The early 1920's guns could be 1899's or 99's. It doesn't matter. I returned a lot of the literature I used to write the book but it seems to me as though some Savage literature called them 1899's in later literature after calling them 99's in earlier lit. The rifles are what they are. Let's call the transition rifles 1899/99 A, B, C, etc transition models. The designations at this point don't affect value or anything else I can think of. This only applies to the transition rifles. A 1903 vintage octagon barrel rifle is definitely an 1899 and a 1928 vintage 24" medium weight round barrel rifle with a crescent buttplate is definitely a 99 (99A). Just my view of the situation. This is fun. Let's keep it going. David
Is there the slightest benefit to calling a 1920-1923 rifle a transition 1899C in any conversation, rather than just a 99C? It's just going to cause huge confusion when folks are asking what rifle they have, or can we tell them about their 1899C?
Physically every 'transition 1899' from 1920-1923 is exactly identical to every '99' from 1924 to 1926.
I'd see no problem with saying that Savage was transitioning from calling them 1899's to 99's from 1920 to 1923, but for simplicity's sake we always call them 99's since that's what they finally ended up as.
If we're going to get 100% nitpicky on everything, then we need to rename the 1899 models.
An 1899 Able would be a 26" round barrel with crescent buttplate.
And 1899 Abit is a 26" round barrel with shotgun buttplate.
An 1899 Aback is a 22" round barrel with shotgun buttplate.
An 1899 Abed is a 28" round barrel.
An 1899 Abode is a 30" round barrel.
Etc - up to the 15 models present in 1900. More added later, of course.
