Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Why no 35 Remington in a 99

I have never heard of anyone chambering a 99 in 35 Remington, either a rebore or new barrel. The OAL of the caliber is shorter than 300 Savage. It might bring new life to an old worn barrel. Has anyone ever heard of this conversion?

Believe Savage did at least one prototype in the 50's. Loggah gave us info on it years ago, tho he doesn't own it.

I have heard of 35-300 conversions, and then the 358 kind of made both irrelevant.

Irrelevant? Yesterday I shot I shot irrelevant while wearing my pajamas. How it got into my pajamas I'll never know.

I always kind of thought that a .35 Remington would be an easy and natural conversion for a 99. But on the other hand how much better than a .300 (or a .30-30 for that matter) would it be? Granted, it's a (kind of) big fat blunt bullet moving at modest velocity making for a very good short-medium range deer cartridge. Meh. The woods is full of 'em.

I had a early RD rifle(1916) that was chambered in 35-300,which was a necked up 300. But the concensus was at that time savage was interested in high velocity with the 22 H.P., 250-3000, and the devolepment of the 300. If i remember correctly there was a EG chambered in 35 Rem. in the 50's another RD rifle. I think Stever had the info,or the rifle. Don

Found a post from you from 2013 mentioning a 50's rifle with serial number 524,xxx that was an R&D in 35 Rem and sold with a bunch of other R&D guns, but you didn't know whether it was an R or EG. Now I'm gonna have to go find that post again.

Aha!

Rory, You computer guys are so smart !!!!! i was just going by memory ,and mine is getting a little dull . I thought Stever had the rifle and it was a EG, but i could be wrong.Don

The Nelson rifle is a special one for sure

I have seen and held a 99EG in 35 Rem that came out of the R&D collection at J.R. LaRue shop in Portsmouth, NH. Peter Dowd sold a lot of the R&D collection guns to J.R. LaRue in Portsmouth, NH, and either Dowd or LaRue sold some to the Kittery Trading Post in Kittery, ME. I have owned a couple of R&D guns that I bought from both LaRue and KTP. I was reaching for the 99DL proto-type in 284, maybe the first 99 ever chambered in 284, at the KTP when a hand came out of nowhere and snatched it.

IIRC, it has a dull, more satin than matte, finish and there was some discussion as to whether it had been reblued.

I heard that someone with the last name of Brown owned it and that he lived in CA.

Along with a bunch of 99s, the 1920 military proto-types in 7x57 and 303 British were sold by KTP.

Jeff I've got an odd .284. I was told it is a 1963 by the serial number. No date code visible. Doubt it's a factory rifle, but being 1963 and .284 has piqued my interest.

I have always wondered why Savage never cataloged the 1899/99 series rifle in either 32 WS or 35 REM, as it seems that they would have sold some in place of 32 WS rifles sold by Marlin and Winchester and 35 Rem rifles sold by Remington and, post-WW2, Marlin.

I have a horrible memory, so have to be good at looking stuff up.

We've discussed this many time in the past

Savage would have sold sheet load of 99's in 35 rem. Especially pre WW ll

Not so much after the war.

Marlin has sold a lot of 336s in 35 REM since they resumed civilian production post-WW2, so I think that there would have been a viable market for the 99 parallel to Marlin's 336 production. Since the average hunter in the post-WW2 economic boom might have had more discretionary income after 1945 than the same demographic group would have had before 1942, there was more demand and more opportunity to sell product. Remember that there was a lot of pent up demand for consumer goods that folks couldn't easily afford prior to WW2 and/or might not have been available during WW2.

I wonder why Savage didn't keep the least expensive 99H carbines in production post-WW2 in 30-30 and, if they had, why they wouldn't have chambered them in 32 WS and 35 REM?

Weren't all those bolt action military rifles The Thing after WWII?

Yes, but a lot of mil-surp bolt action rifles were sold because they were cheap and a lot were sold because they were the only immediately available option when civilian sporting rifles were often hard to come by.

Some people plan ahead and can tolerate waiting several months for delivery, guys who buy McMillan stocks for example, and some people don't plan and even if they did plan, are too impatient to wait.

EDIT: I remember that my Father bought a case of new, unissued, FN-49s in 7x57 around 1965. I specifically remember them because he came home from being in Guam, got up early the next day, went to Agway to buy a horse trough, and used it to boil the cosmoline off them. I also remember that my Mother was highly pissed at both me and my Father when I got cosmoline all over a new pair of jeans.

Me thinks they dropped the ball not utilizing the 35 Remington.


I also think the 32 Winchester special was also nice to be included


A shame.

Few years ago at an auction I picked up a well-worn 1899 marked as 303 Savage. Rough gun, bright shiny barrel. I got my Lee dies ordered, figured I'd cobble some shootin' ammo using 30/30 brass of which I had a bushel (this was back before PRVI started making the nice 303 Savage brass). Thought maybe I'd slug the barrel (at that time I had read several differing opinions about the bore size of a 303 Savage). Dang! My oversize 30 cal slug dropped right through. Turned out mine was a full .358 which didn't fit the 303 Savage barrel marking at all.

Seems that some fine fellow had rebored to 35 cal and rechambered to 35 Remington. And he'd throated the thing like a 35 Rem should be throated, with a nice throat, not at all like the total no throat of the factory chambering.

So I am the proud owner of a 99 Savage in 35 Remington to go along with my Marlins in 35 Remington and my Remingtons in 35 Remington.

I don't think anything was done to the magazine. It feeds the 35 Remington OK but if I load my nice 357 180 grain LBT revolver bullet the COAL is shorter than normal and the cartridges move forward under recoil and jam up the works. I have to stay with normal or a bit extra long lengths to avoid jams.

Out of curiosity I loaded five of my normal 303 Savage cartridges in the magazine and they feed through really nice. Which is why I figure no alterations were made to the magazine to accommodate the 35 Remington. Just in case anybody was wondering about such a thing.

Jeff,

I was looking around the web after your comment on 7x57 1920s. Very little info that I could find. During my search however, I found an old (2011) post on the 'fire by you: "If you want to know about 1920s and have WORD on your PC, PM me and I'll send you my monograph on them."

I tried to PM you but apparently your mailbox is full. Is there any chance I could still get a copy? duhglinkoutlook.com

Thanks!

Maybe because the 35 Remington was a proprietary cartridge of a major competitor whose factory was located just 13 mi. away in Ilion, NY....