Fellows, I took my Savage 99 284 out to sight in the scope and was shooting an old box of 125g factory 284 rounds. I noticed as I ejected one round that the primer seemed cratered with the strike slightly off center. Dumb me shot another round as I had previously used this ammo in this gun and it looked the same, then to be real stupid I shoot one more and it failed to extract the round, that did it I was concerned. So I went home removed the round and stuck a 284 no go gauge in and the action closed.

I have never headspaced a lever action and was wondering if the no go gauge works correctly with a 99, I wouldn't know why it wouldn't but thought I would check.

The weird part is the last time I shot this rife I used the exact same box of ammo and shot over half the box with no problems and the gun has sat in the safe since. A few of the rounds had slight cratering but nothing to make me worry. This was in warm weather so powder temp wouldn't have caused any issues this time.

I'm not real sure but doesn't powder burn faster in warm weather ?
if you doubt yourself,I'd take to a gunsmith and have him check it out. but if your no-go closes in the gun than you got a problem
99's head spacing can be repaired but requires bolt work

plab

Thanks plab I was pretty sure it was a headspace issue, not sure why it showed up this time but doesn't matter it won't be fired again till it has the headspace fixed.

Couldn't the headspace be brought back to specs by setting the barrel a little deeper.

That's one way to do it but then the forearm screw doesn't line up any more.

One of the members here, Grogel, fixed an older gun by building up the back of the bolt and refitting it. I'm no gunsmith so don't know what the 'proper' fix might be.

If you are a handloader you can work around it by fire forming cases and then neck sizing them so the shoulder isn't set back or gets set back very little. It's a trial and error effort.

I had a 99C in 284 with the same problem.

My fix was to sell it and bought another 99C in 284, I think I took the easy route.

You call EG's tomato stakes and yet you purchase not one, but TWO post-mil POS's and C's to boot. What are we coming to?

good dig LBK owwweeeee but I like DL's and they're post mil's

plab

Gotta have one of everything or it just doesn't feel right.

Hope the guy who bought it knew about the headspace problem. Hate it when people put problem guns back into circulation.

Yep, I actually sold it to a buddy of mine in Kingston and I told him full well what it was doing, he wanted it anyways.

Hey wait a minute, did the OP buy his 284 from MadDog?

mad dog ain't got no friends... he's pulling ur leg

plab

WELL he's got a couple out west but we still give IT to him,
needs tunening up every so often.

norm

The No-Go tells you that the chamber is sloppy. A Field gauge will tell you if HS is excessive. Because the same ammo lot gave you widely varied results, I would first suspect that some of the rounds in the box are less than or at minimum SAAMI specs. The Field gauge test ought to be the next step. If the Field gauge tells you that HS is not excessive, a different box of ammo may be the fix.

If the Field gauge tells you that HS is excessive, there is the option to fire form brass specifically for this rifle as suggested previously.

Be advised that you will have to partial resize with std dies so that the case shoulder does not get bumped or have the std dies reamed to match the chamber.