Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Explain this one

I think that serial number is too early for the 1899 stamp.. ??

Correct. There would not have been a stamping on the receiver ring at that serial.

Letting this one go,6" crack in the forarm.Consignment asking $1000.I offered $250.It has a 26"bbl and is a 303. [img:center][/img]

Just found an old email thread with Mad Dog from '07 about a takedown 22HP with serial number 215,xxx with a 24" barrel and side stamped "Savage Model 99".

That one had been sent back to Chicopee Falls and gotten a new barrel, and they'd stamped it at the same time.

Bingo.

Recently I purchased an 1899 H in 22 HP, s/n 122,xxx. It letters as a 22 HP and as being accepted in the warehouse and shipped March 21, 1912. It was also returned to the factory for unspecified work on factory job #18088. No date given for the work.

This rifle has the following differences from an original rifle:

- The receiver has been reblued
- The top of the receiver is stamped "SAVAGE" over "Model 99" just like the post 1920 factory stamps
- The bottom of the barrel is stamped in the smallest font I've seen on a Model 99 with the s/n followed by an R
- The web (if that's the correct term) of the lever is stamped with the s/n followed by an R. The case on the lever is virtually 100%.
- The amount of blue on the automatic cutoff leads me to believe it has been replaced or reblued.
- The blue on the forearm collar does not match the blue on the receiver, but the difference is not as noticeable as on squeelers rifle.
- The forearm collar has been modified. The original transverse screw is still there, but the wood on the end where the s/n originally would have been has been cut off, and the metal plate that is found on the later forearms has been screwed on. But the original collar is modified to accept the plate so that the plate is screwed on with the screws aligned vertically. Removing the plate shows where two horizontally aligned holes have been filled.

I would like to think that all this work was done at the factory, but obviously there's no way to prove it without knowing what was done on factory job #18088.

Before someone asks, the s/n on the buttstock matches. No s/n on the hard rubber buttplate.

For what it's worth my vote is that the work on squeeler's rifle was done at the factory. Obviously, a letter on this rifle would be interesting.

I'm not buying.Maybe JTC could chime in.

I think the metal work was done at the factory. That buttstock.. no, that I can't see.

Yes, I agree. I forgot about the misshapen buttstock.

Barrel serial matches receiver,forarm does not. [img:center][/img] [img:center][/img]

We have seen that butt stock style(?) before. It was on a reworked rifle done by Savage Services. No old straight grip stocks available so they had cut the pistol grip off of an EG stock and used it. That is why I wanted to know what butt plate was on it.

I don't know the history of this rifle butt but that stock sure reminds me of that Savage Services stock modification.

I defer to you, but boy that's a horrible job of cutting the bottom straight. It looks like something I'd end up with.

And the buttplate....Wow,what a piece of chit this turned out to be! [img:center][/img]

Youser, bouncing the seller from 1K down to 250 is a guaranteed turn down, regardless of the rifle's real world value. Unless you wanted a novelty, I'd walked away from it too. I could be a hard sell and that too is something I'd want nothing of.

I sure admire your fellas accumulated knowledge, and that you can pull it back up when it's needed !

I recinded the offer and offered $100.I have no room for junk.

Squeeler, you do have an impeccable selection of guns. I think it's interesting. Maybe a rack set aside for oddities, one-offs, lunch box guns, RS's!

Thanks Fireball.If the forarm matched I might have gave it a second look.

I ran into that problem years ago. Some (maybe not all?) of the pistol grip stocks don't lend themselves well to being turned into straight grip stocks. The geometry of the PG stock is such that that "dip" just can't be avoided....unless you whittled it down to a much shorter heel to toe measurement. That would look even worse.

Mike

Reminiscent of the "scant wrist" stocks found on some '03 Springfields that were arsenal re-worked during WWII. The Armory switched to a pistol grip stock (03A1) and laid in a boat load of appropriate stock blanks. When production was ramped up for the war effort (03A3) it was decreed that only straight-wristed stocks would be produced/issued. OK, no big deal, but when they went to turn said stocks from the pistol grip blanks they got a weird looking abomination. They shrugged their shoulders, said "there's a war on", and made a boat load of scant-wrist stocked 03's which was without a doubt the ugliest service rifle ever built in America.