Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Who does after-market wood like this?

Winchester began to have a difficult time sourcing quality American black walnut in the mid 1950’s.

Hanco, what year, model and caliber is your gun?

Quick hi-jack: OP - What mill did you use to saw that out ?

The first thing I did after buying this gun was order a copy of David Royal's book, A Collector's Guide to the Savage 99 Rifle. My book arrived before my new old gun! The gun was shipped USPS Priority from Vermont to Alabama and it took 12 days to arrive. For a while there I was thinking it was on a slow boat from China.

From the book I learned my gun was made in 1949, but nothing I was reading matched up with the stock, checkering, pistol grip and cap, butt plate and forearm of this gun. Identifying the letter designation of the model from the book was perplexing, as some of the identifiers were related to the wood.

Thanks to Calhoun I learned my gun is a 99EG with an after-market wood upgrade. Thanks to Magnum Bob I know the wood is Walnut crotch wood and after researching, I'm convinced this is not the Turkish Walnut we've seen so much of in the last 30 to 40 years.



The fancy butt plate was unlike any of the factory butt plates shown in the book. Pocono Jack let me know that it is a Niedner style butt plate, designed by A.O.Niedner, an early 20th century gunsmith and rifle maker. That info was really helpful.

With such attention to every other detail like the widows peak, those protruding screwheads in the photos were a puzzlement to me. Turns out they just weren't seated well. Evidently someone else removed the plate to investigate as I did when the gun arrived and over-cautiously tightened them too little.

I'm going out on a limb and guessing the modifications were done in the '50s. It's like someone took a near new '48 Panhead and made a chopper out of it.

We all speculate to some extent when we buy an old gun. I think I have an $800 gun with $800 worth of furniture on it. Please smile when you laugh. But I will say this. I've already had $1,600 worth of fun in just two short weeks!



THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR HELP!

That is a beautiful rifle! Thank you for sharing.
I love custom wood on rifles and just recently I was lucky enough to land one in 250-3000 (not as nice as yours!)
That rifle would look good in just about any fine gun collection! A real piece of functional art.
If you decide it's not for you, please let me know. I have just the gun rack to put it in!

Life is far too short to hunt with an ugly gun!

Best,
Ed

Thanks Ed.

I forgot to share this photo of the custom-made steel pistol grip cap that was designed to perfectly match the fancy butt plate.

Another A.O. Niedner design.

..and if you use star-drive deck screws it's way easier to index 'em..