Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Another Odd Savage 1895 thread

Remember, these were not made by Savage, so Marlin would have had to do the chambering if it were factory work. I would think in that case they would have marked it somehow so it wouldn't get mixed in with all the .303's if it were included in a big shipment. I assume Marlin stamped all the barrels.

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To answer your questions.

Barrel says what every other 1895 says. It’s marked 303. No other stamping is on there that I can see. It’s a round barrel, sporting rifle. Not octagon or 26 inches."

RAS, are you stating that the barrel is shorter than 26 inches?

If shorter it could have been cut back enough to allow for rechambering to .30-30.

Based on your grid, it is early.

Yes, it’s round and it’s 22 inches. There are more than a few 1895s that have round barrels and have barrels that are 22 inches.

Well, to my mind there you have it. Betcha it was cut back and re-chambered. The tale to be told regarding that would be in the location of the barrel stampings as measured from the face of the receiver, and compared to a "standard" 1895 barrel.

Yes, Marlin stamped the barrel with a JM but not with a 30 that I can find.

Actually, three of us looked at this gun, and two of us fired it. Fired cases looked perfectly fine and headspace was good. I completely loaded the rifle and cycled every single round out without any issues. I wish some of my other 99s were as smooth.

Hi Gary. We already thought of that.

And we found three additional 22 inch round barrel 1895s (in 303) out there to compare to. Both the rear sight and barrel stamping on mine are exactly the same as the other three we found. Two are from a member here who may pipe in. Unless the other 3 1895s were cut down as well, which I find highly unlikely.

No notation in the ledger of barrel length? I think the other 22" 1895's were logged as "Light" or similar, weren't they?

Who did yours ship to?

I can’t remember who it was shipped to except I think the address was Jacksonville, FL.

I also think it was marked Light or something like that, but not sure.

I have to dig the letter out sometime.

I just went and measured the distance from the receiver ring to the roll stamp on my 22” light 1895’s the distance is about 7” on my 26” barrel 1895’s its between 7 1/4” and 7 1/2"

Loggah

On my 22 inch barrel, mine is about 7.25. It depends if you go from the lettering or the decorative floral design just outside of it. I measured from the ring to the edge of the floral design and got 7.25.

By my saying on the edge of the roll stamp ,i mean to the floral design.

Here is another with the 22"(?) barrel that needs to be tracked down. It's clear that the museum does know what they have.
[img]https://www.nramuseum.org/guns/the-...age-model-1895-lever-action-carbine.aspx[/img]

When working one of these Savage puzzles it is always nice to have as many of the pieces as possible so we don't end up just chasing our tails...

What do we know about RAS's 1895?
1) it is not marked .30-30 but is marked as a .303. There is NO indication in the log sheets to it not being a .303.
2) I think the chamber casting indicates that it is a true .30-30 chambering and not a modified .303.
3) The .303 chamber could be modified by cutting the barrel back and rechambering. Does anyone know the minimum you would have to remove to allow for a clean rechambering?
4) Matching the barrel address location on a 26" to a know correct factory 22" barreled rifle it appears that if the barrel was set back it was very little. At this point I don't see enough info to say it is not a factory chambering but nothing to definitely prove that it is factory.
5) For me, I find it more interesting that it might be a non-cataloged factory 22" barreled rifle. This model stayed hidden from us till turned up by Plab in the last few years. Lettering his 2 rifles did not show the barrel length but did state "light" or "lightest". I believe Loggah realized that he had one as well. (not sure of what his letter states). Good chance that the NRA rifle is one, also. That makes, at the most, 5 short 1895 rifles. More research and verification is needed.
6) We need to verify that the other 22" factory rifles are chambered in.303. For that matter, any 1895 that has not been verified as being a .303 might have a .30-30 chamber.
7) It would be nice to have the serials or at least the first three digits so we could determine if these were made as a batch or just random production. Production and shipping dates would help to determine if ordered or just for stock.

Manufacturers were selling guns in multiple cartridges, and stamping the cartridge on them was almost universal by the 1890's in the case where it wasn't obvious. The Savage's have it in the barrel address (303 CAL).
I, personally, find it hard to believe that a rifle left the factory in 30 WCF without an extra or different marking, unless it was shipped to a special buyer (Winchester, maybe).

But the chamber casting exists. So.. mystery. Yes, need details on what exactly is in the factory letter. Was it marked Light or something else? When accepted, when shipped, WHO shipped to, anything else listed.

3) By measuring the thread pitch on an 1899H barrel to determine what one thread's-worth of setting back equals, and measuring that same distance up on a .303 case and then measuring the diameter of the case at that point, it's a no-go. In fact the .303 case is so much fatter (by.020") and by virtue of it's nearly straight body taper (only .020" taper between the base and where the shoulder starts) that one has to cut 1.30" off the barrel to get to the point where a .30-30 reamer would totally clean up the original .303 chamber (up to the bottom of the shoulder, which equals the head diameter of the .30-30). Ergo, the entire threaded shank of the Savage barrel (.9") plus an additional .4" of the barrel itself has to be removed, minimum, before the whole process of re-threading and re-chambering to .30-30 can begin.

Imagine what that would do to the relationship between the barrel and its fore end also. Not to mention the radically shortened receiver-to-roll stamp distance too. (I assumed earlier that the amount of material removal in order to effect a cartridge conversion would've been much less than what it obviously would actually be. My bad. Sitting here now over a cuppa coffee at 7:30AM on a rainy Saturday with nothing better to do than dig out a barrel and some cartridges as well as a dial caliper.....)

Note: that's all based on the threads and length of the barrel tenon of an 1899H being the same as that of an 1895. I don't have an orphan 1895 barrel laying around to compare! Are they the same? I bet they are, and if not they aren't so different as to materially effect the above scenario.

Given that a chamber cast and fired .30-30 cases confirm that RAS's gun is indeed a .30-30 and couldn't have been merely re-chambered at a later date by setting back the barrel by a thread or two (which wouldn't have materially effected the location of the roll stamp) it had to have been done at the factory.....

.....unless someone, a factory employee or drinking buddy of Artie Savage, got their hands on an unchambered .30 barrel blank and squirreled it away for a rainy day and it subsequently got fitted as a replacement and chambered for .30-30. But now I'm postulating on the "possible but not probable" side.

Will post letter soon. Again, it was done by that lady at Savage and I am not sure it was the best job. I think it was 2017.

Until then, serial # is 7079


Yes, Plab was the gentleman who had two 1895s like mine and Loggah now has one I guess.

Again, Fugg brought up that he might have known something or seen some documentation about an 1895 or two chambered in 30 WCF.

I don’t think at this point we have enough information to definitively say anything. But this is what I do know. I have an 1895 with a 22 inch barrel that I believe is factory based on what I can see from it. And it is definitely 100% chambered in 30-30. There is zero doubt about that.

How it got that way, I have no idea.

Plab's SR's were produced Feb-Mar 1896. Rifles around 7079 were produced July 1896 so at this point they do not appear to have been assembled as a batch.

Nothing better than a good Savage puzzle to work on.

I have owned Pauls(plabs) 22” short 1895 rifles for a few years now. Pretty sure we talked about barrel diameters and letters saying “light” “lightest” a few times before.

Gnoahhh: "Note: that's all based on the threads and length of the barrel tenon of an 1899H being the same as that of an 1895. I don't have an orphan 1895 barrel laying around to compare! Are they the same? I bet they are, and if not they aren't so different as to materially effect the above scenario."

Anyone know what barrel thread Marlin used during that time? I would think they would simply use the same tooling for Savage rifles that they did on their own.

Also, in Mule Deer's chapter on the 30-30 he lists a load he used in a Savage 1895. Since he also listed one for the 99, and knowing some of his work, I would guess he ran across a 30-30 chambered Savage 1895.

Who is Mule Deer?