Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage 99 reloading help

I have a Savage 99 in 300 serial 505xxx. I came up with 1949 but I'm not sure. I'm setting up some cast bullet loads and noticed the max overall length of 2.60 is to long. I'm new to 99 and don't want to get a bunch of rounds jammed in the rotary mag - looks like it would be a bugger to clear. Is they're a magic overall length that I'm missing, that will feed reliably in this rifle. I figured one of you gents might be kind enough to shed some lite.

I don't know what the rest of the guys do, but I observe an OAL of 2.600" for several of my favorite loads and they all feed fine.

At 2.590 mine still won't eject a loaded round. The bullet hits the side of the receiver, jamming up the show, but does fit in the mag.

Not to be a smar-tazz...but the idea is NOT to get a jam...especially with a 99.

I have the SAME problem with my very, VERY old 300 Sav...IF you try to eject a round from a full mag just by working the lever, the lead nose will hit the chamber "shroud"...you HAVE to close the lever putting about half the case INTO the chamber...THEN work the lever again and the round will jump out like it is supposed to do as will all the rest by doing the same process. My rounds are 2.59" COAL loaded with Hornady 150 SP's because thats where the bullet touches the lands.

The 99 is a CONTROLLED ROUND RIFLE which is why you have to follow the above procedure...and also the reason why it is very hard to get a "jammed" round out from under the extractor hook...so work with it to learn it's secrets.

Don't feel sorry for me for having a "Little 300 Sav"...with it's 26" barrel it equals and surpasses my other 18-22" 308's, 20" 307 Win and some of the "modern" smaller cased 30 cals that abound today and also a friends 16" "bobbed" 30-06. Makes him more than a little pi**ed when I wave the chrono data at him.

You are completely safe by emptying the mag this was because the round is NEVER going into full battery/lockup, you are just allowing the lever mechanism to half way complete its cycle.

Good Hunting

Thanks, some good tips there. You answered a few little questions I had. The flat nosed, cast bullet I'm trying weighs 165 grains and has a wide meplat. I'm finding on a flat nosed bullet you have to imagine it's pointed for overall length. the ogive being shifted so far forward engages the feed ramp to soon, making feeding issues. After playing with seating depth, for way to long, I came up with 2.35" for length. This seems real short but the bullet has a wide meplat and a long driving band.

I don't know that anybody has great serial number ranges for 1947-1948, but if the serial numbers started at 500,000 when the factory opened in Chicopee Falls in 1947, your rifle is probably a 1947 manufacture.

Serial number 5042XX lettered as 1/26/1948, so I would say early 1948. If you look at the lever boss I bet you will find it stamped with an asterisk, like this - *. A 1949 rifle would be stamped with a number followed by the letter A in a circle.

The lever boss does have an asterisk.

Huh. I too adopted a 2.35" OAL with my favorite .30 cast hunting bullet, an old custom Saeco 190 with a wide meplat, which worked for both feeding, and ejecting for that matter. I remember having to shorten them that little bit to get them to seat completely in the chamber due to early engagement in the throat (long nose bearing design). I could correct that by re-throating with one of my throating reamers but am too lazy to bother correcting a situation that works. Frankly, even though I rely exclusively on cast bullets for hunting in just about every .30 caliber I own, I just load 150 Sierra spitzers or 165 Speer RN's for the few hunting cartridges in .300 I load. I don't play with cast in the .300 nearly as much as with other rifles. The 2.600OAL works dandy with all the jacketed designs I've tried, including no-fault ejection. I will admit to wishing for a skinch longer seating ability to get the 150 Sierra a little farther into the leade, but them's the breaks.

Thanks for that, serious lack of data for '47-'48 in my notes. Was that accepted from factory, or shipped?

I believe there are two length bolt stops. I wonder if a shorter one would help by allowing the bolt a little more rearward travel. Just thinking out loud.

There you go thinking again, Roy! I'll have to look at a couple bare actions when I get home to see if they built a safety margin into the bolt stop design, but my gut tells me it is on the ragged edge of farthest bolt travel as it is. Have no clue if they employed different length stops.

i had to build a bolt stop for my F 308 parts gun. the specimens i got from numrich ,one was to short and let the auto cut off pop out and the other was to long and the bolt wouldn't pick up a round. talked with them at numrich and the guy actually knew something about savage 99's. said they were out of the intermediate length one but gave me the measurement.
little cutoff and file with drilling added and i had it working, and it even seated hard against the recoil lug .

There are 2 lengths of bolt stops. The longer one is for guns below 900K SN. It was shortened when the magazine was lengthened for the .308 family.

There is no intermediate. Your Numrich expert wasn't much of an expert if he told you there is. If someone slammed the hell out of the bolt when opening it, it is possible the back of the bolt got hammered and would require a slightly longer stop. I have seen that happen.

good info . i just know enough about 99's to be dangerous and addicted!
the two stops i bought the long one wouldn't let the bolt back far enough and the short one to far that's why i made the intermediate .weird he had the length right.

That's your first red flag. Smoke is your second.

That is shipping date. Order #1575.

Man, you boys must eat Savage parts for breakfast. Low and behold, this is my first 99 - what a different critter the 99 is. My father packed a 99 in 300 when I was a young boy. He parted ways with that rifle when I was pretty young but my first memories of deer hunting are linked to that old rifle. The rifle I'm getting together now came from the rifle rescue mission - a.k.a the pawn shop. Broken stock, buggered sights but good bones, it should hit the range this weekend. I'm hoping it's just the nostalgia that's made this project so thrilling and not a variance of the gun disease that I already have - 99 syndrome, "which I think you boys have", would be hard on the family.
Thanks for the help, Jeff

when i first stumbled on this mes.... ah, site (24 hr campfire) i was looking for info on savage 99's.
i have learned (and forgot) tons from these guys on the savage collectors. i was a age old 110 fiend and had just picked up a 99.
i thought it was a perfect specimen. soon learned what all was not correct with it. i still cherish it and used it to get my deer this year.
if someone could sieve all the knowledge (and filter all the fumunda) from the bunch here David Royal could write a best seller.OH!
wait he did!

Thanks. Same for my mid-1945 rifle, didn't think it had gotten better by '47.