Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 7-30 p2

Trying for more than only 1 image per post[url=https://postimg.cc/SjBr5BXk]

What a beautiful 99 !! Never seen a straight stock with a cheek piece. Can you tell us more about the gun?

I assembled it from pieces. Barrel from eBay, Butt from GB, forearm from Fajen before they folded, everything else from my inventory. I basically waited 30 years for a buttstock to match the forend (then 3 weeks later, found another). I had earlier bought a bunch of straight stocks with cheek pieces from Fajen; I suspect they were available at fire sale prices because of low demand. I didn't use any of them because they did not do justice to the forearm. I seriously thought about removing the cheek because I have a good friend and repeat customer who is left handed, and I thought he might like it
. The stock was grotesquely over size, and by the time I got it trimmed, defined the receiver cheeks, cut the flutes and started making some shape out of it I for some reason did not want to cut the cheekpiece off. I did recontour it because it was far too large at first.

My path was evolutionary, if not especially logical. I bought the barrel because I wanted a 7-30. The only inletted forearm I had with the long lug spacing was this fancy one, and I removed a lot of mass from it. Then a takedown receiver (originally a 300 G bought from a guy who said there was a Sad Story behind it, but never revealed its secret) had to be cleaned up and rust blued before adding all the internals. Meanwhile, a fancy straight stock appeared on GB, so I snagged it. Magazine carrier is 30-30, no modification needed. Lever is 22 HP; it slip closed without any droop. I selected a bolt that headspaced properly, but I never knew its origin. I temporarily put a Lightfoot mount on it so I could hopefully hit something with it, and the results are there.

Handsome little devil...

WoW Sam!
I'm not sure how I missed this 'til now.., but Wow! Very pretty pieces of wood, and nice target!

What did your barrel start as?
What cartridge rotor are You using?

I don't know anything about the barrel. It is a custom bearing only the caliber for inscriptions, but advertised as unfired. I bought it on eBay and built everything else around it. It is a takedown, so I rescued an old rusty 300 G receiver, 30-30 carrier, lever from a 22 HP, forearm from my inventory, butt from GB and so on. I broke the barrel in using the shoot, clean, cool method, and fired the target at the end of the break-in period.

SOOOOOO what is your model designation on that beautiful piece.

Norm

Not sure, Norm. This is one of those projects that took unexpected turns. My original plan was a $500 shooter, partially because of the no-name barrel. It had already been dovetailed for the long forearm lug spacing, and the only one I had already inletted for that dimension is the one you see. It had been composting for 30 or more years, waiting for a suitable match in a buttstock, so I decided to use it. Shortly after I opened the channel to fit the heavier barrel, the butt showed up on GB so I snagged it. From that point on, there was no turning back; I had to make a nice one.

I just found an E in 250-3000 but with craze stocks on it and a lever thats been heated and bent to fit a pistol grip.
Iam thinking of getting it putting on a set of new G stocks a proper lever with great case color. I have an E in 30-30 and 1 in 303 and feel the need to salvage the 250 .


Norm

Dang sharp use of parts, what a beauty, love the wood
.mb

JeffG, I left out an important component. Although the 30-30 carrier worked fine without modification, the cartridge guide did not, nor was that unexpected. I ended up making 2 modifications to an unidentified guide which appeared identical to an early 250 guide.

Very sharp rifle... absolutely gorgeous wood 😄

Out of curiosity, are you basically limited to FP/RN in because of OAL/magazine length with the 7-30 or do shorter/lighter SP work?

I had some 120 gr psp that I had pulled from mystery reloads, so I used them for barrel break-in. They cycle just fine in both directions. Turned out they shot ok too.

As I told you on "the other place" that's a heckuva piece of awsome-ness! Bringing it to Noxen this year?

To my eye it appeals every bit as much as a cherry original gun (and just as valuable if not more so).

History has proven that non-original pieces of work can often far exceed the value of factory examples. Take for instance a Ballard Pacific: an original as-made example in pristine condition will set a fella back $3-4K, but if it was ministered to by someone like Schoyen, Petersen, Pope, Niedner, et al you must lay out twice or maybe three times that amount. Ditto a pristine original M1903 Springfield versus one put together by Owen, Hoffman, Griffin&Howe, etc. Both have their place, but for me once I've absorbed the details of a rifle I get bored and have to take it to the next level.

Yes Sam, I'm curious about the feed geometry changes.

The shoulder angle of the 7-30 seems to be the more important factor through the 99. I couldn't get good feed and extract through a 30-30, and had the same bullet-stubbing-it's-nose-too-high feed problem starting into a 25-35. it worked better in a 300 Sav rotor, but still not right.

I think the carriers get blamed for a lot of problems that are actually caused by the guide and sometimes by the auto cutoff. For that reason I developed a sequence that includes carrier operation with no guide, and a set of undersize guide pins that make guide changes a snap. The final piece is the auto cutoff, and that can be both subtle and esoteric. Sometimes I can glance at one and say, aha, this is what it needs, and sometimes it is like Edison and the light bulb all over again.

Awesome .