Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors New Savage 19

I picked up this .22 today: it appears to be an M1919. It has some odd features though, so I'm not 100% sure it's an M1919, though it looks like it is.



The stock is a full military-style stock, but it has a nice, uniform checkering on it. The fellow who sold it believed it to be aftermarket, which I thought at first too. I'm not sure.



The wood also looks to be high quality and has a nice amount of figure to it, something I haven't seen much of on the M19 models. Also, the sights appear to be not the usual aperture, but rather primitive open notch sights. A nice leather sling came attached to the gun. I'm not sure if it is original to the gun, but it sure goes nicely with it. The leather has no breaks or tears.



There is a number on the backside of the receiver near where the bolt goes in: 6986. I'm not sure what year that means it to be, but it seems quite old. The inscription has the 1917 patent dates, but no model number, no "NRA" either. It does say "22 long rifle" near the ejection port.



I didn't actually plan on buying a bolt .22, but this particular one turned up locally (well sort of local) and really bit me.Anyone have any ideas on the age of this gun and whether my thoughts above are correct?

After further research, I'm beginning to wonder if these aren't the sights from a Savage 23 rifle or maybe a 1922 rifle, but placed in the wrong screw hole. There are two holes with the same size and thread: one at the back that probably is for the factory peep sight, and another farther forward, ahead of the bolt mechanism. I wonder if these little open primitive rear sights should have been installed in the front hole. Shooting the gun tonight showed the gun was accurate, but the sight picture was a bit weird. Perhaps it's supposed to be like this one:

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3973422

http://www.auctionarms.com/closed/displayitem.cfm?itemnum=9306649.0

The only other issue I'm encountering is that the gun does not like to feed the first round of a full magazine (tends to catch the bottom of the chamber). After the first round, #2-5 feed fine. Anyone have that issue at all?

Morning Vigo
The 6986 is your rifles serial number. When you send for a letter you will need that. She is a beauty, to my untrained eye the checkering looks OK. Not certain on the sighs but personally I would not fool with it.
Thanks Chris

That's the early Model 19. Same action as the Model 1922 I believe. The rear sight is from the Savage Model 1905 and is correct for the M-1922. Not sure about the 19.

Just my opinion but the checkering is aftermarket. The factory would not have checkered through the finger grooves. I wonder about the stock itself. That is really pretty wood on that, better than I've seen on these but Rick99 really knows these. A factory letter will set some doubts aside one way or another.

Still, if the price was right I would have bought it too. Nice rifle.

Not a 1905 rear sight, the 1905 came with 21B's on the back.

Not real sure what that is on the back. I thought at first it was a 25B but after a closer look you can see that it isn't, then I thought maybe a 29B but someone would have had to grind the sides of a 29B to make it fit that straight.

I pretty much concluded that someone took a generic rear sight a drilled a hole in it to make it fit the gun where it was factory drilled for the original model #5 rear sight.

Mad dog,

Do you have a pic of the sight that would fit a 19 NRA?

I have one with no sight. This thing has 4 holes drilled in the barrell for a side mount and two holes on top that I assume were for the rear sight.






Thanks

MD,

Yeah that's right. GeneB on another site thinks whatever it was has been cut. After going back and looking closer, he's right. Maybe a #20.

It�s a dovetail sight that had the dovetail made by folding the sheetmetal over, and not by milling from a solid piece, it�s had the edges trimmed to remove the dovetail and a hole added. Stevens held the patent on that process for making sights - Steven's sight patent - and Savage got it when they bought Stevens in 1920 � all manufactures used that process after the patents ran out. You will see most (or maybe all) of Savage�s sights from around 1920 changed from a milled base to a folded one. Savage, or someone, even came up with their own 'improvement' on this design by making the folds different widths so it came out 'stepped' when folded and did not require any milling to finish - just the edges of the different width folds contacted the dovetail.

Here's an old post that has more info on the sights - NRA sights

Boswell, Gene's post shows the #5 sight pretty well.

Your side holes are probably drilled for a Weaver N2 or N1, wasn't factory though.

Thanks guys

That #5 is a nice looking sight. I think it's time to call Ken Bean...The Sight man.......

Thank you for the information-- it's possible it is just a generic old open sight. It seems to have worn consistently with the rest of the gun, so I wonder if someone swapped the aperture sight out off the bat in favor of the open ones. The sight picture was sloppy with the sight all the way in the shooter's eye like that, so I moved it up to the front hole, which seems better to my eye.

I heard mentioned on another board issues with the extractor rubbing on the chamber outer wall to the point it makes a hole. I'm seeing a bit of wear to the contact point there on the ramped chamber wall, but nothing all the way through or the like. Is there a lubricant of choice to put on that contact point? At the moment I have a little Hoppe's Oil in there, which I did a light coat on all the other moving parts with too.

The serial mades is about a 1920 production, give or take. Your rifle has two holes for the rear sight vs the earlier one hole version. The front sight has been changed to work with the current lower rear sight. Sure not the standard grain pattern you find in the standard 19.

Was it reworked because it had nice wood or was it special ordered or put together for an employee...might be worth a letter.

I have not heard of a hole in the action from the extractor. I'd think it would have required a LOT of shooting to do that if it is true.

You might try a differnt magazine if it is not feeding or just load one less round.

Another fellow mentioned that the chamber wall ram wearing away can be a problem on these. I'm not sure how much wear is too much wear, not being an expert on these. I've attached a couple photos below. Is this alright?

I don't know if anybody noticed, but the ejection port has been opened up wider than it should be for an early Model 19. I have a Model 19 with serial number 10,2XX that has a much narrower ejection port. I really like my rifle and it took some time finding it, but the one ctiticism I have is the ejection port is so narrow that you can't put a finger in it. Which, I suspect, is the reason Savage opened them up on later 19s and 23s.

I stand corrected on the "hole in the side of the receiver from the left ejector". The metal is very thin and the bulged metal appears just below the stock line. Is it a problem? I don't think so since later rifles have a big factory slot through the frame at that point.

Thanks again for your help with this, Rick, I'm new to these guns but really like this one as a shooter.
We're talking about area "A" in the photo below, the area outlined in red, that's what you mean when you mean "thin" and "bulged"? At least that's the area that looked thinnest to me.



Is there any simple way to add a little more meat to that area to stave off additional wear? I currently have a thick coat of grease on it. I've heard others suggest soldering a small metal plate over it, while still others said to coat the area with a thick layer of tin-lead solder to act as a buffer. Any thoughts on that?

In the "A" area, as long as the edge of the chamber is not worn below where the rim of the case seats you are fine. If you look at any .22 the extractor grove is cut right to the edge of the chamber. If it wears below the edge it will bluge or blow out the case just above the cartridge rim. Since the barrel and receiver are one piece you can't set the barrel back and rechamber. I can't tell from our photo if the edge of your chamber has worn below a flat surface or not.

In the "B" area, the extractor is up against the outside wall. The metal in the receiver wall is very thin at that point and on the early rifles the extractor will wear through. It appears that to correct the problem Savage just cut a port through the wall of later rifles to allow the extractor room to move.

Thanks for the information there. I do not believe the A area is reduced to the point that the lip has moved. I shot about 75 rounds through it last weekend and did not notice any bulged or blown cases. The B area I will take a closer look at. I actually did not consider it wearing through to the outside over in the B area. I did give it a healthy coat of grease though (as I did for A as well). It shoots quite well, at least based on the 75 rounds I did last weekend. When I put a dummy or empty shell case into the chamber, the lip sits up against the rim of the casing/dummy.

I'm wondering if I can just run it as-is then, just keep grease on those two areas. I haven't noticed any problems in shooting, at least so far (knock wood). I bought the gun mainly as a shooter for inexpensive target practice on weekends, when I'm not doing the flintlock rifle hobby.

Put a little lub where the bolt handle and receiver make contact when cocking the bolt and go shoot.

Thanks again for your tips with this rifle.

Is there any suggestion for ammunition to try or avoid? Or will it handle just about any .22 LR ammo?

Vigo
Thanks for the post, with all of this 19 talk I had to dig mine out for a look. She is in pieces and I really should devote a little time to getting her up and running again. My number is 5650 and definitely has a much smaller ejection port than your rifle. The rear peep is missing a few parts but pretty sure yours would have/could have looked much the same. Another interesting fact is the early rifles had double firing pins.
Wondering when the ejection port was opened up?

Some more shots. I pulled the butt plate and everything matches-- butt plate number, stock number, receiver number. There are two large "1"s stamped in the stock away from the serial number. What do they mean?

Here are some pics from tonight after cleaning up the rifle a bit further. I'm not sure about the ejection port question, this rifle seems to be all matching parts, but with some different features than normal.

Is it alright to shoot the modern HV .22 LR in these, or is that too "hot" and I should avoid it?

In my experience the HV stuff will not shoot well anyway. CCI has a standard velocity ammo that does ok Personally I shoot the federal bulk pack ammo with pretty good results. Although I'm finding the CZ I wish to shoot does not like the federal. Wondering what others are using.

I have shot thousands of rounds of Winchester 37 gr. High Speed hollow points in my 23AA, which has a similar action, and never had a problem. Ground squirrels, jackrabbits, and crows have had some, tho....

Your rifle was produced about 1920 and before the HV round was developed. I don't think a few HV's will hurt but I would stick with Standard or Subsonic rounds. The CCI Std Vel is a good choice and can be bought in the 100 rd plastic at Walmart or in 50 rd paper at Dick's(sometimes) or on line Dunn's (out of stock right now) . CCI Subsonic is another good round. Each rifle has its likes and dislikes and you sometime just have to try different rounds to find out.

The 23AA is a later rifle (after 1932) and will handle HV with no problem.

CTW, you might try Blazers. They have been getting better reviews than the Federals lately.

CCI Standard Vel will be my next stop-- have to locate some locally.

I have found a rear sight for the gun (single screw peep type). I probably will need a new front sight if I want to use the original peep type, as the current front was filed down to match the open sights in the back. What front sight types will work with the rear peep? I've seen both stock blade and some globe sights used, but I haven't seen a list of which sights work.

Personally I would install a Lyman 17 globe front sight and not look back.

Interesting-- would a Globe like that work with the #5 Peep in the back?

Also, would some of the more common Savage 99 blade sights work, like the ones you see for sale with a white dot or gold bead?

Yes.

With which sight? Of course a blade will work with an aperture sight as well as a v-notch. All depends on blade height as to whether or not you have sufficient elevation adjustment in the rear sight for the work you want to do with it. The style of front sight will also be dictated by the work you intend to do with it. For fine target work, you almost need the flexibility that the inserts for the 17A will give you. If tin can plinking or the occasional squirrel is the only task at hand, then the beaded blades are fine, but won't allow you to wring the nth degree of accuracy out of it.

That all hinges on whether or not the front sight is dovetailed to the barrel, although I can see how a 17A can be adapted to blade front sight boss.

I've got a single screw No. 5 peep sight mounted on my Savage 19 and it doesn't provide a lot of precise adjustment. Also, be careful with the small spring that applies tension against the windage knob as it is very delicate and easy to break - especially considering that all the early one screw sights are probably about 80 to 90-years old by now. Savage use to list a blade type front sight for this rifle - you still may be able to find one if you dedicate yourself to a mission of scrounging through parts cans and tool boxes at gun shows.

I'm now fairly certain the checkering and stock are factory. The stock number matches the serial number of the gun, and the Savage catalog of that era describes "fancy" stock as an added cost option. I also looked through the catalog and found that the factory offered checkering in the pattern on this gun as another added cost option, with an example of it as done on a Savage 99.

Since checkering would have been a special order option, I wouldn't assume that it is factory unless I had a factory letter stating it to be so. Lots of people in the past 90 years have cut checkering in a non-factory environment. It is a great looking rifle and if is was mine, I would install the correct receiver/peep sight and call it good. My 1919 NRA and 19-33 shot good groups with RWS Rifle Target.

JEff