Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles savage 99 actions

Any diff between the .300 savage and the .308 winchester model 99s, other than the chamber???

Don't know for sure. I did by a 99 once that was a 300 Savage and had been re chambered for 308. It had a rotary mag, not brass though. It had really cheap wood and a tang safety. It worked fine.

The 308 actions are longer. Savage switched to the longer action in the 50's if I remember right

Whoops, that was my post, didn't notice the login was wrong.

Yep, Cheesy is correct.

Savage introduced the .308 Winchester cartridge in their Model 99s in 1955 in the Models 99R, 99RS and the 99 EG.

The following year (1956), Savage added the .243 and the .358 Winchester (both cartridges use a .308 case with the neck resized to the caliber in question) in the Models 99R, 99RS, 99EG and, finally to the 99F (1959).


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

Not only are the actions a bit longer, they are also a bit stronger. Pre-55s had action stretching issues while later actions did not. The older actions are certainly safe, just that hot loads (over .300 pressures) can give sticky extraction - hence the change when the .308 etc. were introduced.


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Action stretching issues? Umm...


Anyway, the 308/243/358 cartridges will fit in any action with a serial number over 900,000. They changed the internals so that the longer cartridges would fit. Put a 308/243/358 into a action with a serial number under 900,000 and you'll find that a factory length cartridge ain't gonna fit.

And the change was global to all actions. So a 300 Savage rifle with a serial number over 900,000 could have it's internals swapped to feed 308's just fine.

All tang safety rifles are SN 1,000,000 or higher, so they're all good.

Sure, read pre-war articles about the M99 when the authors loaded .250s and .300s to "normal" high pressures (ca. 50,000 cup). They mention very hard extraction and the inability to re-insert the fired case into the chamber - classic descriptions of action springing/stretching. This doesn't happen with post-1,000,000 M99s.


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I would take any such pre-war articles with a big grain of salt. A lot of those guys were very knowledgeable and well meaning but without access to pressure gauges (which nobody but the ammo mfgr.'s, arsenals, and a couple of laboratories had). A lot of their data, along with inferences based on that data, don't hold water 70 years later. It's possible to exceed the limitations of any action made at any point in history while thinking you're on the side of the angels.

Savage 99's, while admittedly a little springier than a modern bolt action, are hell-for-stout with large safety margins for their intended cartridges. There is no evidence indicating that pre-.308 actions are any "weaker" than later ones. The only difference is the alterations made to accommodate the slightly longer cartridge. If anyone has knowledge of a change in Savage 99 metallurgy at that time, I would love to hear it!

Okay then, how about a post-war report comparing pre-war and post-war rifles? In Shooting Times, January 1990, Rick Jamison wrote:

"My experience with the prewar Savage Model 99 riles is that those actions are much "springier" than later Savage 99s. Later-production Model 99 rifles are apparently made with better steels. While the design of the rifle hasn't changed, at least insofar as the lockup, later rifles handle pressures without the usual case stretching and separation problems common with earlier Savage lever guns."



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Now, they did change the heat treating on the receivers as cartridges with higher pressures came out. So as the 250-3000 and 300 Savage came out, Savage did make changes. But there were no significant changes made AFTER the cartridges came out. So the 300 Savage came out in 1920, and the receivers stayed the same after that up until 1959.

Still trying to wrap my head over how a "springy" or "stretchy" action can cause the case to strech too much. The bolt locks the cartridge into the chamber, which is totally inside the barrel. Are you (Rick J) saying that the entire action stretches during a shot, which allows the bolt to move backwards and the cartridge to strech? And then the bolt snaps back into place after the shot?

Can't believe that would happen.. not more than a couple of times without the receiver crackng. Which, in fact, was found to happen sometimes on early rifles made for the 303 Savage/30-30 class cartridges if they were rechambered to higher pressure cartridges like the 300 Savage. Though I doubt how much streching could go on.. those actions are a pretty solid piece of metal.

So maybe this whole thing is about bubba rebarreling old Savage 1899's into 300 Savages?

Metal does strange things under stress/pressure. And any rear locking action provides lots of material and room for flexing to occur.

Those with much experience loading for Lee Enfields, M94 Winchesters or most other rear-locking actions are very familiar with action stretching, making cases tough to extract. The case head pushes the bolt back and stretches the action, allowing the case to stretch in the momentarily-long chamber.

The steel has not reached its yield strength (it remains within its elastic limit) so it snaps back to the original shape once the chamber pressure drops. The brass case has exceeded its yield strength and will not snap back. The latter is trapped in the now-too-short chamber, giving tight extraction and an almost impossibility for re-use without setting the shoulder back to the correct dimension. We are only talking a few thousandths of an inch of stretch here, but that's all it takes.

Metal behaves according to physical laws just like everything else does. Metallurgists and gun makers know this very well. That some may "doubt" has nothing to do with the reality of what actually happens. Steel actions stretch with every high pressure firing - its just that with front-locking actions the stretching is minimized. A little research on Google (or in some reloading manuals) will bring a lot of this into focus for those willing to study the engineering rather than rely on "common sense."


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I always thought it was from bolt compression.

Also sounds as though it's something that's being loaded way hotter than the design limits. I've got a gun safe full of shooter 99's, and the only one that had hard to extract cases was a post-1960 clip model in 243 with an after market barrel. I still think the chamber was off or just too small.

And maybe the case stretching is something more relegated to those weaker actions you mention, because I've never experienced it (and almost all my 99s are pre-1955), and it's not something I ever remember coming up for discussion in the Savage Collectors Forum on this site. Though we have talked multiple times about early receivers cracking from being rechambered to hotter cartridges. And the regulars there own easily 5000+ 1899's and 99's between them. Maybe it does happen on a bubba'd rifle, or the rare factory one with sub-standard metal.. just never seen or heard of it. Could be that Rick Jamison heard it from others, who'd heard it from others, who'd said it because it was obvious that ANY rear locking bolt will have case stretching.


Here's a 1900 rifle that was rebarreled into 250-3000, a bad idea, but it shoots little, tiny groups and it's factory engraved and it's a family heirloom, so I'll keep it. One of the first 1500 Savage 1899's made, so the action should be as "springy" and "strechy" as they come. Even though it's shooting cartridges up to pressures of 45,000 CUP rather than the 34,000 CUP that the 303 Savage was designed for, I've never yet had a hard to extract cartridge - much less a case head separation.

Works quite well on antelope.