Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Best shots on game with a 99.

In a previous post I wrote about a shot I made on a deer when I shot it in the chest and it did a backflip over the red brush. It got me thinking that there are probably some pretty good stories (and maybe even truthful ones) about shots on game with the 99's. I was using my 99 CD in 308. The shot was 160 yards offhand. I knew I had to shoot quick as the deer came out in a space where my brother also had a shot at it. I threw the gun up as soon as I had a decent shot and pulled the trigger. My brother had the crosshairs of his 7mm Mag on the deer when he heard me shoot and watched the deer do a complete flip over a bush and never move again. It's a story that gets rehashed every deer season when we get together. Would like to hear your experiences also.

Well, I am not really one to brag . . . but since you asked . . . . .
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<br>In March 2001 I was pig hunting in Colusa County CA (north of Sacramento). My hunting partner and I were returning from our positions along the ridge. We were riding in his truck. The next guy in the line was on the ridge several hundreed yards up.
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<br>All of a sudden, the truck flushes a Boar. We stop. It keeps running. I had Factory Iron sights on a Savage 99E in .308. It was sighted in a few inches high at 100 yards with a point blamk range of about 260 yards.
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<br>I raised the rifle and watched the Boar run. Moving too fast, too far away for a shot.
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<br>Then, the dumb thing smelled something good, slowed down and began rooting. The terrain was wide open cattle country and the pig only had to go a few yards to drop out of sight in a small depression. SO, I decided against stalking a spooked pig that could see me.
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<br>I held a little high (it was an uphill shot at about 250 yards).
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<br>I FIRED.
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<br>THE BOAR FLOPPED AND KICKED.
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<br>Game over.
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<br>When I gutted the pig, I discovered that my range estimation and my hold were right on. But I forgot about wind drift! The warm air rising out of the valley had pushed the bullet forward about 5 inches. My clean lung shot was, instead. a high neck shot (remember the head was down and the pig was rooting). The Remington Core-Lokt passed right behind the brain stem and right over the spinal cord.
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<br>We decided that the pig was dead before it hit the ground.
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<br>Jerry, the guy we were driving to pick up, was mad as a wet hen.
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<br>YOU SHOT MY PIG!!! he cried!
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<br>Apparently. the Boar was ambling up the trail directly to Jerry. He had been watching the pig come to him for 30 minutes. Jerry watched the pig stroll up the trail, eat a little,, walk a littl, eat a little, etc. When all of a sudden, the pig trips, falls over and starts kicking! (then Jerry heard the report from my gun, figured out what happened, and started walking down the ridge) Fortunately, Jerry got one later that day.
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<br>NOTE: There was no safety problem. Jerry was way up the ridge. I had a clear shot with a good backstop (a rock cliff 30 feet behind the pig).
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<br>At the end of the day, I had a 210 pound Boar, we agreed it was taken at 250 yards (Group Kentucky Guess), and we got a good story out of it.
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<br>BMT

Oh well, if you really want to know, go back in time about 25 years. I had worked up some cast bullet loads in my .300 model G and was hunting deer from a stand on a pipeline. A doe crossed on my left at approximately 175 yards and a few moments later a buck, with nose to the ground, followed. He hesitated and lifted his head with only a few yards to go before I wouldn't be able to see him. I fired and hit low by his reaction but insead of running, he turned around and trotted to the middle of the right-of-way. I held slightly higher, and at the report of the shot he buckeled at the knees, but regained his footing and ran to the wood line. I found him just inside the wood line having strange set of antlers with 3 points on one side and a single spike on the other.- JDL

My ex-father in law tells this one. He was about a mile back in the bush up in northern Minn. he shot a BIG doe with his 250-3000 and hit a little too far back and his son and he spent most of the day following a scant blood trail in the snow finally just befor dark they found the deer and then had to figure out how to get back to camp. Low and behold they were only about a hundred yards behind their tent, after that we heard how he always used that shot placement on Big deer that were too far from camp to drag in, just wound them and herd them to camp befor they die.
<br>After writing this down it sounds much better told around a campfire with a belly full of hot stew and a snort of brandy, but then everything is better under those conditions.
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<br>erich

rick_g
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<br>re: best shots on game with a 99.
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<br>thanks for asking rick. i have a couple but i'll just go with the one. oh, this is a truthful story.
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<br>rifle used: 99F .308 150 GR W-W SUPER X it was 2000 deer season about 4:00pm mild weather temps in the low 40's. i hunt on my own property, where i also live.
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<br>i had been hunting that day and i was walking down out of the woods. when my hunting friend pulled up in his truck. just as i started to speak to him another friend and his brother showed up. we began to talk, the four of us, about how the hunting was going and what the others had gotten. as we were talking i noticed in the field, by my barn, some deer moving about. i told 'em all "i going to get me some deer meat".
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<br>the others were talking as i walked up the road a bit and looked at the deer. i would have to get to the gate before shooting. there is fence and the gate between me and the deer. i eased up about 20 yards away from the gate. the deer were 90 yards away. i could see two large does and four small ones from that years new batch. i got to the gate and i picked a large doe. at 70 yards,i stepped it off later on, the doe was broad sides i put the bead on her heart fired the shot.
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<br>the deer, all of them, headed away to my left. i stepped out in the road, from the gate, and watched it all happen. the doe i shot along with the others jumped over the fence and and then jump across a one lane gravel road over another fence, the others went up the hill and into the woods.
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<br>the shot doe, jumped the fence ran along the fence towards me, jumped back over it and then fell dead 10 feet from me along the road. how is that for delievering the meat.
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<br>till next time,
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<br>99savage308
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Watching my old Dad shoot running coyotes and huge muleys with his 1937 vintage 250-3000 Takedown is what got me started in this compulsion to own all the 99's in the world. He was hailed as the best shot around, and years after he was gone, old boys would come up to me and say what fantastic shots they saw my dad make with his "Savage". It is a love affair that will never end. This is not just a firearm, but part of my past that is wonderful to me. Dave O

watching my dad actually hit a buck about 250 yds away and dropping him with the old 99 30/30 and then me missing the damn thing from 10 feet away with my model 94 winchester as my dad chased it out of the swamp my dad had shot it in. We followed the blood trail for about another mile before finding it. It eventually went down from my dad's first shot through the lungs.
<br>Also my blowing the tail completely off of a doe. I thought I had hit the brich tree behind it! I got it with my next shot though. When we started coming up to see where we first shot at it (it had disappeared into the brush and we didn't know it was down) All we could find was a complete tail and a dribble of blood! About 20 yds away she was laying the bushes. this was made with a 308 model 99.

About nine years ago I was hunting for the first time with my 99E/308. It was early Nov with about 6 in of snow in Northwest Colroado, on the side of a scrub oak, aspen, spruce and pine ridge line. Though I had a deer tag, the seasons goal was nice sweet cow elk. I was shooting a plain jane Remington Corelokt in 180 gr.
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<br>While on the way down to a point of a finger running off of the ridge line (my hunting buds were taking up similar positions elswhere) about 1/2 an hour after sun up (we started out a half hour or so before sun up) I heard shots from the bottom of the main drainage below me. This usually means a group of cows have been sighted (maybe even some shot), and the rest have broken up and are running up hill towards the tree line (the edge of which was where I was heading down to). I had just started across a draw to get to where I wanted when the sound of shots fired hit me. As I hustled (just a bit of adrenaline was coursing through my veins) to where I wanted to be, I saw two cows crossing my path about 75 yards out. Can you say buck fever? I had never shot anything other than a couple of quail before. As the elk were ambling along, I had to take a shot at them as they moved. This stopped them. Since I couldn't decide which one to shoot, I shot between them. Realizing I was tasting just a bit of crow pie, I slowed down and took a shot at the lead cow, who was standing still, looking up the trail, but with her front half mildly obscured by brush. I picked what seemed to be the right spot and squeezed one off. When I tried to load the next round, I got a stove pipe or something (probably short stroked it) and had to take my eyes off of the prize. When I looked up, I didn't see either one of them, so I slowly walked up to the last point I had seen them at.
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<br>When I got to the spot, I looked around and found her on her side, with no apparent cause of death. ROlling her over, I found an appropriate blood spot. After getting her back to camp and hung up under a tree, my buddies and I went over her and found three holes. I was accused of hitting her twice, but finally realized what happened was that I had hit a rib in the lung area, which had split the bullet in two. One piece followed the rib up and thru the spine, the other had angled slightly down and through the lung and chest area. I don't believe she even took a step. First elk!