Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 40/45

How common are the savage model 40/45's? I have one in .300 sav. and a 30-.06,but never see them at gun shows around here.

Not too uncommon. I see several every year at gun shows in Michigan. Most of the ones I see are 30-06, but 30-30 and .300 Savage also show up. .250 Savage is the one I keep hoping to find, but so far no luck.

Thats a hard question to objectify, but they are out there. You seem to run into the 06 more often, but they too were made in 30-30 (which I'd like to find) and .250-3000 as well as your .300. I like them but many consider it a cheaper bolt gun. I think the 40/45 series was an attempt to produce a hunting rifle at a certain price point. I've wondered for some time why Savage never produced them in their proprietary.303, other than it was already loosing ground to the 30-30 by 1928 when the 40/45 first went into production. The 40/45 was made between the late 20s and WWII.

How do you like your Super Sporter?

To be honest, I've never fired either gun. I need glass or a peep sight at my age, but they come up nice when I shoulder them and the bolts work very smoothly. I'm not going to d/t them just to mount a scope---- I'll use my 99 eg in .300 or something else. Thanks for the info, Rodney

I think that it depends where you are geographically. My impression is that most of them stayed in the Northeastern part of the U.S., New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.

The 30-06 and 300 Savage seem to be more common than the 30-30s and much more common than the 250-3000.

According to Paul Koller, his Father Larry rebarreled a Savage 45 from 30-30 to 219 Zipper either shortly before or after WW2 and used it to shoot 'chucks in southeastern New York and northeastern New Jersey. So, if you ever come across that oddity, you might look twice. Paul also told me that Larry often stamped his telephone number in the wood under the buttplate "Mtown 5027".

Both Lyman and Redfield made basic "hunter" type receiver sights for the 40/45 series. The Redfield almost looks like it needs no relief cut in the stock.

I've seen a few "Super Sporters" out West here, both 40s and 45s, but only in .30-06 except a cherry 45 in .30-30, which I quickly purchased as a neat "big brother" to my 23B.

Out here 40/45s are quite uncommon, but sit on shelves for a long time. If a Savage isn't a 99 or a 24, most people assume the worst.

For example I have bought several really cherry Valmet-made "Savage" 330s at bargain prices because the dealer didn't take the time to actually READ the markings and ASS-umed they were made in Turkey or China.... And a nice Savage Model 219 single shot that was marked "Stevens Model 94."

Sometimes literacy actually helps!

Savage kept on and on trying to manufacture a really excellent bolt action centerfire that would beat the big guys on price and match them on performance. The 1920 was a good try, as were the 23s, 40/45s, and 340s.

110/111 NAILED it. But its precursors are very interesting.

There is no doubt that the 110 series has had a long and successful run, but they have never sold at the same rate as their market niche contemporaries. If Savage had made them better looking, maybe they would have sold more of them. I think that the Marlin X guns were the pinnacle of Savage 110 series, 'cause Marlin copied everything good about the Savage and then made them more attractive in a, sort of, VW Bug vs. Karmann Ghia way.

Being a collector of them, I have a bias toward the 1920s, but I think that Savage failed to help them succeed by not making them in a long action and chambering those long action 1920s in 30-06.

Also, during the time that the 1920 and 20/26 were in production, 1920 thru 1928, the only other rifles cataloged for either 250-3000 or 300 Savage were the Savage 99 series and, for a short time, the Winchester 54 in 250-3000. Despite being cataloged in both 250-3000 and 300 Savage, Winchester 70s chambered for those two cartridges are quite uncommon and generally looked upon as collectibles, rather than shooters. You'd think that if the 250-3000 and/or 300 Savage were going to be popular in a bolt action rifle, the best vehicle for that success would have been the Winchester 70.

And the Depression and flood of 1903s and 1917s and Mausers that were cheaper than dirt in that period didn't help ANY domestic manufacturer sell bolt action centerfires.

If I'm not mistaken, Model 70s were also made in .300 Savage and didn't do well. And the much later Rem 700 "Classic" in that caliber just sat on the shelves for a long time, as did the few 110s made in .300.

My Remington "Classic" .300 Savage cost me ACTUAL dealer cost; the dealer gave me his factory invoice. It still shoots as well as any .308 I ever owned, and that's very damn well. Even with it's notorious too-short neck!

The 700 Classics in 300 Savage were often bought as donor action and the barrel sold off cheap. I have one that I rechambered to 30-284 and another that I left in 300 Savage and screwed onto a Remington Seven action.

Funny how the rifles that in their day went over like the proverbial "turd in a punch bowl" became the uber pricey collector pieces of today. I can't remember the exact asking price for the last Model 70 I saw chambered in .300 Savage but it wasn't cheap - not by a long shot.

M1903's and M1917's didn't flood the market during the depression. The M1903 was still the issue service rifle and the 1917's were still being held as secondary war reserve. If you were an NRA member you were allowed to buy a M1903 through the DCM (predecessor to the CMP). Quite a few were sold that way but certainly nowhere near enough to "flood the market". The cost of an NRA membership was a day or so's wages for a poor working stiff, and a M1903 would've then cost him enough money to feed his family for a month.

Therein lies the tale why the big arm's makers in the U.S. really scratched hard to stay alive. I think Savage cheapened their line at that time for economic survival but kept the 99 up to snuff as a matter of corporate pride- which explains the 40/45, 23-series, and other hardware store grade cheap guns they made.

The Mausers and other milsurps from WWI were held by the victorious European powers for their war reserves or destroyed outright. Not a heckuva lot made it over here pre-WWII.

Yeah, gnoahh, I guess I was thinking of the immediate postwar period for the "flooding." The Depression era was Krags and WWI Mausers. The Depression did "depress" the gun market some, tho.

With the rate of unemployment hitting 25% in 1933 I don't think that there were too many folks with enough money to buy a "luxury" such as a gun in the 1930s, and certainly not anywhere in the frequency we enjoy today. The Great Depression was a very tough period of time and one I hope we never see again. By the way, I like gnoahh's concept of "hardware store grade guns." Nothing wrong with that as it pretty much describes my family heritage. Celebrate your heritage!

Indeed! I didn't wish to sound disparaging. It was "hardware store grade guns" that kept my family shooting until I came along and started talking their ears off!

No offense taken at all. I happen to have an interest in these types of guns more so than I do for the high grade presentation pieces as I have much more in common with the folk at the hardware store than I ever will have with the country club set. Maybe this makes me different, but because of that the high end fancy stocked engraved firearms have always held a limited appeal to me. Nice to look at but that's pretty much all.

One argument I use at my job, where I create/re-create 18th and 19th century scientific apparatuses, is "it's just as easy to make something aesthetically pleasing as well as functional, than to make something that is merely functional." Drives my boss nuts (but it's a short trip).

No argument there. But I do find a well preserved "field-grade" 99, 40/45, 1903 Springfield or (dare I say it) Model 70/54 Winchester aesthetically pleasing enough. Though at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I do have a 1922 M2 Springfield and would like to remove a 1903 NRA Sporter from my bucket list. Anyone interested in trading for a nice pre-war 99R??? Hint, hint. hint....

Just to throw my 2 cents in:

Savage did during the depression what any good business does that is in survival mode. They obviously had a very good marketing team and a good business strategy to provide a "chair for every ass".

If somebody wanted to buy a gun, they wanted to have a gun for every potential customer. They were able to carve out their space in the market during very difficult times and survive.

No shame in that....

Take a look at Murrey's production figures for the 99 in 1933. If I remember, it amounts to something like 2500 guns! During this time Olin saved Winchester from fading into the dust of history. Tough times indeed.