For those of you that own/owned one, what are you opinions? Considering something different. Not a fan of the Savage tang safety, but certainly lots of lever safety models available
I used my dads M88 .308 frm 1957 until 1995 when he passed it on to me. I recently passed it on to my oldest son. Except for a trigger job, fixing a crack at the tang from a loose recoil block and changing magazine springs it had no issues.
Much more accurate than I was led to believe. Easy to load for in that it handled book max loads easily. The chamber was comparatively tighter than the ones on the M99's I have worked with. It required full length resizing for hunting. brass life was long. The greatest advantage it had was the one piece stock. This allowed using a tight sling as a shooting aid. I think of it as very similar to a M&) FW in feel.
The Model 99 in .308 I have used the most was a 99E with a trigger guard safety. I bought it around 1974 to replace a .300 Savage. It was lighter and shorter than the M88, was less accurate [1.5-2" three shot groups]. I stoned the sear and it had a good trigger pull.
It didn't always like top handloads. I never could get it to shoot well with 748 [my preferred .308 powder at the time] and ended up using an IMR-4064 load. I tossed cases after five loadings. I tried to get more reloads but I got a few case seperations at 7-10 reloads.
I like the trigger guard safety on a 99 better than any other on a lever gun. It was handy, similar to a 99F. I preferred it to the M88 for blacktail hunting, I liked the M88 for elk in Eastern Oregon though. I killed blacktails, whitetails, mulies and a few elk with both.
