Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 800,000 s/n range rifles

A few years ago i picked up a savage EG in 250-3000 in the elusive 800,000 s/n range. Last week i picked up another EG in 300 savage in the 800,000 range !!! so now i have a pair, one of each caliber

300 s/n 834793
250-3000 s/n 835188


anyone else got any of these,and does anyone know why most of the 800,000 numbers were skipped ???

I got a breakdown of what was stamped 800 K several years back from JTC over on the old forum. He didn't mention the whys and wherefores though.

I figured someone thought the stretched magazine mods that were made for the .308 cartridge family warranted a fresh start on the SN block. Or...?

Don are your rifles drilled for a scope? The ones I have seen were all drilled and I always thought it was for the longer cart

The 800,000 serial number rifles predate the 243/308/358 change to the receivers by several years. As far as we know, the specs are identical to the other early 50's rifles made for the 250/300.

The rifles are not drilled, and i can see no difference in them then regular EG,s.I wonder if anyone has seen any "R" models in the 800,000 range,or if they were only EG's.The 834,793 s/n rifle has a lever boss code of 19F making it a 1954 rifle,and the 835,188 s/n rifle has a 3E code making it a 1953!! weird !!

I kept the text of JTC's original post. Here it is:

Mike and anyone interested. Here is a summary of the 800,000 S/N block. It seems apparent that the company set this block aside for some unknown reason as the dates are much earlier than lower serial numbers shipped a couple of years later. Second there are way less than 100K guns in this block. The first posted s/n is 834,000 and is followed by blank records up to 834,777. A blank record is where the numbers are posted and have no entry against them and of course no product either. The first entry is at S/N 834,778 and is dated 11/6/53. The following entries are mixed up to s/n 834899 and are dated 10 & 11 of 1953 with a sprinkle of some 1955 and 56 dates. 834900 to 834909 are blank. 834910 to 834994 have entries dated 10-1953 with some in 1954. 834995 to 835025 are blank. 835026 to 835262 are mixed entries with 10 & 11 1953 dates. 835263 to 835412 are blank. 835413 to 835451
Show entries for 8/9/10/11 of 1953. 835452 to 835520 are blank. 835521 to 835539 show entries for 10/1954 and 7/1954. 835540 to 836051 are blank. If I did my subtraction right this makes for 502 Model 99�s in this S/N block. The next entry is at 900000, which of course is where the new longer and open receivers to accommodate the .243, .308 and .358 Winchester rounds started. I hope this sheds some light, but not necessarily some answers, on this controversial series of numbers. Jack

I have data on seven.
Four EG's, two R's.
One EG shipped 8/54 and one 11/53.
One R sold 2009 on GB and one at auction in OH 2008.
Two EG's and one R in .300.
Four EG's in .250

It is clear that the 800's were run early. The question is whether they were run intentionally and why or just in error.

Thats pretty interesting!! to bad we dont know why well with only a few over 500 out there i doubt i will find any more !! thanks for the info,no if i can only remember it.

I thought sometime or other I'd heard that savage had put aside that block of number for some company like sears for a contract that fell through ???? myth ????

plab

I've never heard that or any other speculation so, yes, I'd say it's a myth.

I might speculate marketing was in a push to reach the magical number of 1 million.

Definitely possible... I've always thought it was likely that some doofus stamped a leading number of 8 rather than 7 during a Monday morning hangover. Timing might be pretty close on the 734,778 and 834,778 production dates.

Now when they skipped the 800's totally at the introduction of the 900's, I can see two arguments being made:
1) Hurrying to 1 million.
2) Or, rather than use the 800's for the newly redesigned 243/308/358 sized receivers (knowing there were 500+ receivers out there in that range which wouldn't fit them), they jumped to the "clean" range of 900,000.

Or maybe it was both.