Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Old Savage 22 rifle identification, help needed

Hello everyone, I am a new member here. Hopefully someone can help me with the identification of an older Savage 22 rifle.

My Dad had a Savage 22 rifle that I used quite a bit and had some good adventures with. Somehow it disappeared over the years. It was made prior to the 50's. I'd like to find another one like it but can't seem to ID the model number. Here's what I remember: made by Savage, not Stevens. Tube feed. Walnut stock with an enlarged forend that filled the hand. No checkering nor black forend tip. Takedown with a heavily knurled screw beneath the forend. Safety was a knob at the end of the bolt that you pulled back and turned to lock & unlock. Peep sights. Chromed bolt.

A Savage Model 5 is very similar to this description but the reference I have says the Model 5 had a thumbpiece safety behind the bolt handle. My Dad's gun had a knob safety on the back end of the bolt. Maybe his was a very early model 5?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Silvers

Silvers,

Do you remember if the rifle in question had a finger-grooved fore end?

The style safety you recall rules out a model 5, I think. These were introduced in 1936 with a slide safety along the right side of the receiver.

In the era you mention and earlier Savage had no ther tube feed BA rimfire rifle.

Are you sure it was a Savage? Mossberg made rifles with the type of bolt safety you remember before the war.

Agreed. The only model with..."Safety was a knob at the end of the bolt that you pulled back and turned to lock & unlock." that I can think of would be the early Model 3 but it is a single shot.

Rick,

What was the Savage equivalent model(if any)to the Stevens M86? The reason I ask is that the early M86 was a tube fed take down bolt gun and had a safety like that described above. Later the bolt was modified and it was changed to a side safety. There was a retrofit program to update the older rifles so you may not see many originals with the original safety.

Thanks everyone. The gun was definitely a Savage, no finger grroves, bulbous forend and a safety as I described. Possibly it was one of the very earliest Model 5's before the side safety was standard fare??? Dad owned two 22's with the same safety arrangement. The other one is a Stevens Buckhorn 66 and I do have that rifle. I'm going to start looking for a nice Savage 5 and the side safety feature will be fine. Thank you all. Silvers

From a quck look through the books it looks like the Savage 5 (1936) was a later version of the Stevens 86 (1935).

Rick,

I went and looked at my sparse catalogue accumulation and it looks like the early Model 4 used a bolt safety as well. The '36 catalogue shows a slide safety for the Model 5, but doesn't hype the rifle as a new model. Curious.

When did Savage and Stevens combine their catalogues? Not prewar as near as I can tell. My 1948 catalogue is the first I have where it showcases both lines.