Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Reloading for Older Savage 99

Don't do this.

I would like to have a 99. They look cool

I found with my 1952 99 the particular bullet determines OAL. I can load a Sierra 150gr RN out more than a 150gr Partition. I made up some dummy rounds and found the Partition had to be seated deeper so the lead tip didn't hang up and jam the action on ejection. The round would clear the chamber fine but the lead tip caught on the inside of the receiver. Photo bucket isn't working for me today or I'd post a loaded 150gr RN. I cut the lead tip off of a Partition and could seat it out more.

To measure pressure I designed instrument amplifiers, epoxy strain gauges to the chamber, connect the strain gauge to a Wheatstone bridge circuit, and connect that circuit to a digital storage oscilloscope, and interpret the signal with Roark's formulas for stress vs strain in open ended tubes... or...

When Quickload velocity predictions match the chrono data the batch of powder can be characterized. What is in the QL library may match my jug perfectly or be off by 4%. And we are paying for "canister powder"
The QL pressure prediction threshold to make a primer pocket get loose in 243, 257 Roberts Ackley, 25-06, 260 Rem, 6.5-06, 270 Win, 308, 30-06, and 8x57mm is the same, despite the wide range of SAAMI registered pressures.

I have done that.

I would assume that other large Boxer primer pocket Mauser case heads would have the same threshold without me testing them; 22-250, 6mm Rem, 250 Sav, 6.5x55, 300 Savage, 7mm-08, 7.65x53mm, etc.

Why do I do this?
Because I am curious and because I can.

Regarding Clark's high-pressure experiments with a Savage 99 action:

If I was deliberately going to increase pressures until primers failed (which I can't see myself doing), I don't think the Savage 99 action would be my first choice. Or my second choice.

To each his own. Be careful out there.

How closely do you think your measured pressure levels would correlate with the measurements made by the powder or bullet manufacturing companies?

I wrote about that in 2003 in

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.guns/HwkJMndcqhE


"How to write a mediocre load book" second revision

Tell us about your 270 Savage.

There's no point in loading 99 .300's to max, IMO. Brass lasts longer, money is saved, accuracy can be just as good, and strange women in bars will slip you their room key if you load a bit on the soft side.

Guys in my family loaded 38 grains 4064/any old 150 cup-and-core for years and cheerfully killed deer dead as dead can be.

I picked up a box of Barnes 130 TSX's and plan to wring them out and switch to them probably. The .300 Savage is the only .30 in which I don't load cast bullets for hunting. That could well change, too. If I wanted .308/.30-06 performance, I would reach for one, not a .300 99.