I have 3 1899/99 Savages, that had the tang crack when I bought them. All have had many rounds shot thru them since I bought'um. My 99D, that I bought in '66 had the worse. Since, all 3 of my daughter, 6 of my grand daughters, and both of my wives learned to shoot with that gun (.300). It has not shot hundreds of rounds, but thousands of rounds. None of my rifles cracks have gotten any worse! There fore, I can not believe that these cracks are caused by recoil. MHO, that as thin as the wood is at this point, those cracks had to be caused by a side wise force. I have a 99E, that has a chip out, directly behind the top tang. That was caused by recoil! However, I am very open minded, and would welcome any proof that I am wrong! By proof, I mean showing me that you can crack the side of the wood, at the upper tang by recoil!
No one is saying that All 99 cracks are caused by recoil, the main cause from what I see is the fact that there isn't much wood in the tang area.
However, recoil, sideways movement, improper inletting at the factory, direction of wood grain, etc are all Contributing factors.
But if you say your 99E has a chip in the tang caused by recoil, why wouldn't recoil cause a crack?
The fact that the cracks in your 99's haven't spread, could be explained by several possible factors, the crack spread further into the stock where there is much more wood, or the grain direction changed, or over time the wood in the tang dried and shrunk away from the metal, etc etc.
I personally have seen tang cracks spread so far down through both sides of the pistol grip that I wouldn't even want to shoot them.
