Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Reboring Barrells

A while back I came across a mint 99F in .243 Winchester for s a price that I thought was maybe a little on the high side. Anyways as the gun looked almost new I bought it anyways, I then loaded up some rounds with mild starting loads only to find that the primers where blowing and the cases where stuck in the chamber. I then took the rifle to a gunsmith and was told that the ratio of land to grove width was not right and he also found that the rotary magazine was kind of rough because it was full of blown primers from some past owner.

What to do? Part it out? I could not resell a gun is this condition and be able to sleep at night.

The gunsmith suggested that he could re-bore the barrel to another caliber so I would at least have a usable gun. I decided to have the gun re-bored to a .260 Remington and it turned out excellent. The rile consistently shoots 1"-1 1/4" groups at 100 meters.

This turned out to be a very expensive rifle and I will never recoup any where near what I have into the gun if I sold it but what the hell I learned a couple of lessons and likely own the only 99F in .260 Rem. in existence.

I may try this again since I also a 99F in .300 Savage that already has been Bubbafied. Maybe a .338 Federal? What a Moose killer that would be!

Ratio of land to groove width? Ummm... Don't sound right. Whatever it was, though, sounds like the fix worked.

338 Federal will not work in a 300 Savage action as the 338 Federal is based on the 308 Winchester. When Savage added the 308 family they changed the 99 to handle the longer cartridge.

Now a 338/300 Savage would work and with the 160 TTSX or 185 TSX would be Nasty.

Good luck!

Sigh.. a 99F in 300 would work PERFECTLY fine if the receiver is a 900,000 series SN'd receiver or a post-1960 receiver. If it's 700,000 series then a 338 federal would not work.

That's presuming that a 338 Federal will load and feed fine from an unmodified 300 Savage rotor. That's something you could try ahead of time easily enough.

can the 99 take the pressures of 338? Isn't that sort of a kickin round?

It is not the only .260, but I put a new barrel on mine.

"Sigh" as I said, they changed the gun when the 308 was added....sigh!

Such a burden being the THE 99 expert for the rest of the great unwashed.

A 338 Federal would be no pressure issue in a 308 sized action.

Wrong.. 100% wrong.

They came out with a lengthened receiver for the 308/243/358 and these were all in the 900,000 serial number range. But they sold the shorter 700,000 serial range 99F's chambered in 300 Savage and 250 Savage concurrently with the 308's and 243's. But once the 700,000 receivers were gone, they sold the 300 Savage and 250 Savage also in the 900,000 serial numbered receivers.

So some 300 Savage 99F's that were sold after they came out with the 308 will work, and others will not. The issue has nothing to do with what the barrel is chambered in or whether it was sold after the 308 came out, the issue is all about the fact that the 900,000 serial numbered receivers are the ones long enough to fit a 308 cartridge.

Larry The Expert Guy obviously thinks that all Savage 99's were sold in serial number order. Newbie mistake.

Also the 338 has Been already Converted By a Few In Clip Models and Rotary Mag Savages in either 300 Savage Receiver or In 308 Receiver in the 900,000 serial range.

And There Is Some Rotor Modification-Fine tuning to Feed the 338 Federal
As far as Pressure the Bolt on a 300 or 308 is No Difference.
And Will with Stand the 338 Federal,

great info... I might try this one day... don't think I have any donor guns right now but something to consider just for the heck of it....

Negative. They removed some metal internally to gain the room. That's why the post 900,000 receivers have an extra stamped metal part wrapped around the sear screw to hold the carrier in place. The original internal web was machined out. The post 900,000 receiver is the same length as the pre. You can do the same thing with a pre 900,000 receiver yourself and use the newer part but its an iffy deal and I wouldn't touch it with an 11 foot pole.

Thanks for that correction, George. Knew what I meant but was saying it badly. Outside dimensions of the receivers stayed the same throughout. The internals were changed to accomodate the lengthier cartridges.


Of course, into this whole mix you can add at least the one 700,000 series rifle that somebody here lettered as being made in 243. Though it wouldn't load and feed full length 243 cartridges either.

Anybody ever have a rebore gone bad? If the gunsmith screws up, your barrel is hosed. I've seen the disclaimers from the folks, just never heard of anybody having one go bad.

... rory, I have seen a 243 F for sale that had a 700's serial... always wondered about it... lots of "stuff" happens in 50 years but just seemed odd...

We know of one 700 thousand that lettered as a .243 but as Rory said, it wouldn't feed worth a flip.

http://www.auctionarms.com/search/displayitem.cfm?itemnum=9539419&oh=216543

and either this one sold again or another one sold also b/c I remember seeing the actual serial stamp on one...

I've never heard of a problem with the "ratio of land to groove width" and doubt that your barrel is any different than the thousands of 99F 243 barrels that give flawless service.

I looked into having a 99 in 300 or 308 rebored/rechambered to 338 Federal by JES Reboring in OR. Mr. Ocumpaugh, the owner of JES, told me that he had rebored some Savage 99s to 338 Federal, but the owners were getting high pressure signs with factory ammo, so I opted out of that conversion. If you're interested, the JES web site is www.35caliber.com

Jeff