Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors I'll Never See My First Rifle Again, but...

A (crowned) barrel of 22 or 24 inches, schnable forend, straight lever, walnut stock (non-perch belly, with cheek pads, and not checkered), cartridge counter (oval, I think), loaded chamber indicator on top of receiver, no barrel bands, sliding safety on the lever, rear buckhorn sights, and ramp front sights.

Hi all. I found this site through a collector I met at the local gun show. He is one of the members here and wrote the book, "A Collector's Guide to the Savage 99 Rifle and its Predecessors the Model 1895 and 1899." I bought a rifle from him, a Savage 1899 made in 1916, .30-30, and the rifle is aboslutely fantastic. Shoots extremely well with better accuracy than I dared hope for.
Re: My title, my first firearm was a Savage in .300 Savage. In the early '60s, at age 14, I shot my first deer with this rifle. I bought the gun at a local pawn shop for $30. Afterward, my father - whose biggest problem with alcohol was that he had to stay around until it was all gone - pawned my Savage for $20. I managed to scrape the money together to buy the gun back (you could do that in those pre-1968 GC days; al you needed was the pawn ticket. They didn't even ask you for ID to make sure you were the one who pawned the gun). I think it cost me something like $24 to get the rifle out of pawn. A couple of months later, though, he pawned the rifle again and I just could not raise the money to get the gun out of pawn.
I vowed to someday buy a rifle just like that one, knowing I'd never see mine again. Several years ago I found a Savage 99A in .250-3000 and bought it for around $400 plus a lot of ammo, but this rifle didn't feel like my old one. I think this one was made around 1980 (sn D107291 but I can't find that sn in the book). I sold it for $350 to an older gentleman who had to sell his years ago in order to buy a wedding ring for his bride.
The book I cited is excellent! If you have't read it, you're in for a treat. However, and I don't mean anything derogatory, I am more confused than ever regarding models, suffixes, etc! To me it's as if Savage tried as hard as they could to confuse future buyers! After reading the book, I still don't know if my rifle was an 1899A, a 99A (pre-war or post-war), or one of the short rifles. Realize I'm working off of 50 years plus memories but what I recall is: A (crowned) barrel of 22 or 24 inches, schnable forend, straight lever, walnut stock (non-perch belly, with cheek pads, and not checkered), cartridge counter (oval, I think), loaded chamber indicator on top of receiver, no barrel bands, sliding safety on the lever, rear buckhorn sights, and ramp front sights. Someone had previously installed a recoil pad so I don't know what the original butt was. The strange thing is the forearm (I'm pretty sure) was hollow - not solid. I also wonder which parts are interchangeable as this rifle, when I had it, was old and I don't know what had been changed prior to me coming along. I'm guessing the rifle was a 99A, pre-war. But was this an 1899A short barrel rifle? Maybe an 1899 E Light Weight? The receiver was not drilled and tapped; nothing was written on the receiver. I don't recall the word SAVAGE in big letter anywhere on the barrel or receiver. The rifle was not a take-down.
Sorry this is so long, but as you know, these are very special rifles -way ahead of their time and I will forever be looking for one to replace my first gun.
Take care -