Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors The story and current problem with my 99.

I have a mid 70's 99C in 308. It helped me kill my first deer ever, and many, many since. It has always been accurate, reliable, and downright perfect in my opinion. The lever and bolt lock up has gotten loose lately though. If I hold the gun out in front of me horizontally and pop the safety off, the lever drops. When fully locked with the safety off, if I don't squeeze the lever the bolt can shift ever so slightly.

So I need to take it to a gunsmith. But I don't want to take it to just any gunsmith you know? It seems incredibly hard to even find gunsmiths with websites around my area, and the few I find don't show any work. So where should a fella take a gun you'd normally have to pry from his cold dead hands to get welded on? I'm incredibly distrustful of new age custom rifle builders and AR guru gunsmiths. I find no one mentioning specializing in 99's, and wonder if someone around here could point me in the right direction.

How can anyone point you in ANY direction if nobody knows where you are to begin with?

Rick99 Online content


Campfire 'Bwana

Registered: 03/18/02
Posts: 10618
Loc: N E Kansas


Below is information that is posted in a sticky at beginning of this thread under "Miscellaneous Good Stuff"
I have done this on a couple of 99s I own, one being a 99C manufactured in 1968. It is a little more difficult to do on the 99C with the clip magazine but if you take your time and follow the instructions it will solve your "lever droop." The difficulty is on the 99C is getting the lever out of the receiver.

From Lightfoot,
If your lever does not stay up to the receiver when the rifle is not loaded it is because the lever is not applying enough force to the bolt to hold the lever up in place. We refer this to "lever bit". To fix you must close the arc of the lever by tapping a few times with a rubber or rawhide hammer. It doesn't take a lot and is a trial and error task. Once you remove the butt stock and review the "attached" photo and your rifle it should be pretty clear as to what you want to do. If you need help just ask.


Attachments
694096-Leverbite.jpg (3811 downloads)

Send me a PM if you need some more info on it.

Your lever bite (the contact with the nose of your lever and the ramp on the bottom tang in the receiver)has become loose. Have Longbeard tell you what one of our inspectors, Ronnie Pepin, used to do when he found this condition. It's an easy fix. JTC

JTC, thank you for weighing in on this topic once again. There are some here who would like to make it much more complicated than it needs to be.

Originally Posted By oldtimer303
JTC Offline
Member

Registered: 05/02/02
Posts: 37
Your lever bite (the contact with the nose of your lever and the ramp on the bottom tang in the receiver)has become loose. Have Longbeard tell you what one of our inspectors, Ronnie Pepin, used to do when he found this condition. It's an easy fix. JTC

Lbk

If the Pepin fix is different that the one's on the stickies, I would appreciate the information as I have a 99 22-250 that needs the fix. Old guy told me Viagra wouldn't work for lever droop. grin Thanks GW

I am assuming that you have had contact with JTC because I have never tried this nor have I publicized it. However, I chuckle at much of the information posted lately. Here's what Ronnie himself told me. In the day, Savage employees actually called the 99 "the STUPID rifle". He claimed ANYONE with a hammer or screw driver could fix a 99. It was so simple. At any rate he said when they assembled a rifle many times the lever ended up loose. Now they had numbers that had to be met so they just couldn't fool around. They would put the muzzle on the floor and open the lever and SLAM it full travel until it stopped. They would check the "lever bite" again and if it was still "loose" they would repeat the process again and again till it was "right". Honest, this is the way Ronnie said they did it and I have no reason to doubt it.
_________________________
_________________________
NRA Endowment Life Member (and proud of it)


Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something. - Plato

JTC posted it in response to a question I posted on the old Gun & Knife forum where he was known as "Jack" Maybe you weren't on that forum?

I had a pre mil 300 F with the lever droops. Pat Laib gunsmith Spicer MN tightened her right up.

Had you looked below his name on the left side of the page, you'd have seen that he was from Wisconsin. Your annoyance at his question was uncalled for. Wondering if this is because he's a newbie, or is it just that time of the month for you? Answers like yours will succeed in running off newbies, so if that was your goal here, good job.

First off, I was not annoyed. Secondly,,,,,,,,,,,,,,when he made the post, there was NO LOCATION. I just went through 35 pages of your posts and nothing other than today have you chosen to grace us with you presence. Feel free to interpret my posts any way you want. Stick around, you might just learn something. And I'm still not ANNOYED. Just amused.

JTC has also told me that story, and Yes it does work so does takeing the lever off and useing a mallet! Both takes time tho, not a one Wack fix!

I think it was a one whacker for Loggah!!!!!!!!!!!!

LBK any chance you could take Loggah in an arm wrestling contest. Maybe he should advertise for one whack lever jobs. GW

Noooooooooooooooooooo GW. I think the Loggah is in a class all by himself.

All Loggah has to do is glare at a lever and it puckers tightens up.

Loggah makes Chuck Norris whimper and walk away just by giving him a nasty look.

I want to ask a question. My 1955 99 F model locks up tight. When I squeeze off a round or dry fire the lever drops slighty after the firing pin moves foward. The lever is up and tight with the firing pin in the cocked position. Is that consider normal? I had a trigger job on this rifle years ago by a very good gunsmith in Michigan who works on 99's. I never consider this a problem since after firing I am ready to cock the lever to eject the spent case. However none of my other 99's do this. They are from the 1920's and 1930's. Also the factory triggers back then were much better that the post war factory triggers which I thought needed adjusting for better pull and reduced creep. Your thoughts.