I have to agree also. Relieve the wood at the top tang and maintain good fit on the bottom and sides.
Filing away wood at the top tang should work fine if your 99 is just a shooter but would otherwise distract from any collector value.
The picture I posted showing excessive relief in the upper tang was for illustration purposes only, the camera was set to macro and as I mentioned, the buttstock bolt wasn't completely tightened. The actual relief is hardly noticeable.
In fact, the picture above that one showing the tang from another 99 also has a shim, that's actually how it should look.
The recoil lug is called the recoil lug for a reason, that's where the recoil is supposed to be, no?
I made a mistake in the thickness of the shims that I use, it should read .020 mm, not .050.
There's no way you can convince me that hundreds of thousands of 99's have cracks caused by sideways movement. If that's the case, us 99 owners must be a clumsy lot!
As I mentioned before, since I've been using shims, no more cracks on my Savage 1899's!
