Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Who has the lowest SN 99 in 300 Savage?

Unless Savage held back because of technical reasons.. do we have accepted or ship dates for any of those low serial numbered 300 Savage rifles?

First thing that comes to mind is heat treating for higher pressure, but the 300 Savage is barely any more pressure than the 250 Savage. (250 is 45,000 CUP, 300 is 46,000 CUP)

Second thing is possible problems with ammo production?

Third thing is legal issues.. lawsuit for patent infringement, etc. Goodness knows that there have been enough lawsuits over patent infringements on cartridges in the last 20 years.

Or possibly they had their hands full with the new Stevens stepchild?

I can't imagine they had to shut down sales channels to handle Stevens...

Probably lots of stuff going on. Economic depression, massive downsizing probably still after the war, merging Stevens into the fold..

But if they made 99's in 300 Savage in late 1920, did they sell them? If they did, where's the ads/catalogs?

Murray's says under the 300 Savage cartridge in chapter 4 that Savage sold the 99A chambered in 300 Savage in 1920 first. Wish we had a source for that...

If it's been hashed out before I apologize, but what about the first M1920 in .300? Could it have slightly preceded the 99 in .300?

I'm watching for any ads or articles on that as well. I haven't seen anything for the 1920 that's earlier than the 99 in print.

Outing magazine, June 1920. Months before the 300 Savage rifles, doesn't sound like they are being buried with the merger.

This is it.. first mention of the 300 Savage I can find. Same month that the first ads come out for the combination kits with the 99G in 300 Savage.

September, 1921.

Dug through catalogs, newspapers, scanned copies of magazines.. I just CANNOT find any mention of the 300 Savage prior to this. First dated catalog/pricelist I've seen with 300 Savage is the catalog 62 and Jan, 1922 pricelist. Earlier ads in 1921 make no mention of 300 Savage, nor do they mention any model letters like the 99G.

So.. maybe we are misreading this list.

WHAT IF.. production in 1920 stopped at 234,000? And didn't resume until fall of 1921? Then everything fits.

They did crank out a LOT of 1899's in 1919-1920. Prior to WWI, production per year was 10,000-15,000 per year with 15,000 being an exceptional year. In 1919-1920 they averaged 20,000 per year. Maybe they just overloaded their supply channels and it took a year to empty out inventory?

They also just had the 1920 come on line, which could have absorbed some worker's time. And the 1921 shotgun was available at the first of the year in 1921. More work.

Rory, looking at your data, it looks like Q3 1921 production to have inventory for sales/marketing launch on Jan 1922. This scenario would fit with a first price list in January 1922 and the 300 Savage launch flyer you posted.

Interesting to ponder.

Good work, Rory. Your hypothesis makes much sense.

I will add though, having survived a couple industrial takeovers in my life, that it isn't all skittles and beer for either party during such times.

It's beginning to look like Savage was a bit star-crossed in 1920-1921 for a few months, for whatever reason, and the debut of the .300 was slow to materialize- no matter the bright face they showed to the public with their reassuring ad. Companies lied to the public then as they do now.

I'm now thinking it's quite possible they didn't start production of the 300 Savage until fall of 1921, probably spent end of 1920/beginning of 1921 developing it and put it on the market in the fall of 1921.

Just read through 1920's 4th quarter results as spun by President Wright, and they were hurting. Orders at a low point, businesses they had diversified into and kick started crashed before any orders fulfilled (ball bearings, motor axles, etc). They lost money in 1920 after making money and paying lots of dividends the year before, no dividends paid in 1920. Stevens apparently was doing good for them, but there weren't many bright spots. Savage Arms steel production in Feb, 1921 was 75% shut down. So if their 1899 inventory was full and orders disappeared as the 1920 Depression hit with high inflation.. yeah, they might have pretty much stopped production for 10 months on the 1899's. It's possible..

Just ran into this: September, 1920:

Looking at the sales numbers...sales for 1921 was less than 5000 ea. 1899's. I think the production numbers, 18,000, are correct it is just that what was produced didn't sell/ship.

What source do you have for the sales numbers?

Murrays (as well as Kimmel) has the production numbers as 8,500 for 1921, from 229,001 to 237,500. And we know that's wrong, we have data on a letter for 227,8xx in 5/25/1920 and 229,2xx for 6/14/1920. It really looks like 1920 ends around 234,000 or 235,000.

The one letter I have for 1921 makes it look like 1921 would end no higher than 240,000 and could be as low as Murray's 237,500 - and then Murray's gets back on track for 1922+.

So I can see production for 1921 as 5,000 - I can't see it as 18,000. Unless my data is all wonky.

PS: Oh, wait.. did you mean production for 1920 was 18,000? Murrays shows 17,500, but data from letters shows it's more likely 22,500 (ending at 234,000 rather than 229,000).

There was a depression in 1920-21 and perhaps Savage overproduced immediately after the war in anticipation of an upswing in the national economy. Maybe Savage got that one wrong and had a momentary surplus on their hands. According to Murray, Savage made about 7,000 99s in 1922 with the year bracketed on both sides with higher production years. I think Savage likely spent parts of 21 and 22 hustling rifles that just weren't selling on the market.

And maybe they thought that once the .300 was released in the 99 the demand for other calibler 99s woudl drop, so they needed to pedal backlog first.

Well, I'm done deep diving the internet. I can find no reference to the 300 Savage being around prior to September, 1921 in anything except books/articles written 10+ years later saying it was introduced around 1920. There's just as many other references that say it was introduced in 1921. I've dove through newspapers, magazines, old gun books, library archives, financial returns (and oh cripes did THAT SUCK), etc.

In the 1920 financial report they mention the new 1921 repeating shotgun and new axles/tires/bearings they were going to be producing, but no mention of the new 300 Savage cartridge. They also mention that ALL inventory has been marked down to cost or market, whichever is lower. No company that isn't in very dire straits marks their inventory down to cost or lower.. Unfortunately I can't find a full annual report for 1921, just a Moody's summary which lists no products. I think Savage might have been dodging the newspapers.

So when you look at 1920/1921 for the 300 Savage.. absolute nada until September, 1921. In September you find ads for the 300 in the 99 and the model 1920, you see references to is as "introduced a new cartridge", in December you find people asking about this new 300 Savage cartridge they heard about the month before, and the magazine writers not knowing the proper powder loads for it yet. Back in June of 1921 and earlier you find ads for Savage, but they are for all the other cartridges except the 300.

I can't see any conclusion except that the 300 Savage was NOT sold until fall of 1921. I know this contradicts "history", but I can't see there's any source backing up the intro in 1920.

If somebody has a historical source showing the 300 Savage was introduced in 1920, please pass it along.

And if the 99's chambered in 300 Savage started in the fall of 1921, then it only makes sense to say that the 99 models start in the fall of 1921. Just like the first 99F's were produced the year before they were catalogued in the 50's.

Best way to verify this or disprove this is probably to get a couple of letters on the earliest 99's in 300 Savage in the 234,xxx range to find the date they were accepted by the factory.




PS: For financial guys out there (I know we have a couple)
Savage Arms Annual Report with comments by Pres. Wright - 1920
Moody's Annual Report on Savage Arms - 1921

Rory, I have Savage sales info (don't know if it is just sales or sold and shipped) for:
1912
1913
1914
1915
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939

But sales would be units shipped, not manufactured. If they manufactured 41,000 guns in 1919 and 1920, how many were still in the warehouse on Dec. 31, 1920 waiting to ship in the midst of a serious Depression? They cut prices to cost or lower in 1921 according to President Wilfred Wright in Jan 1921. Did they continue to produce guns while making zero money?


PS: Oh, so much of my career has been spent with marketing and bean counters and warehousing while developing systems to track and report on inventory/mfr'ing/supply chains or simply tracking active customers. Still remember the time I had to inform a CEO/CFO that their customer counts were inflated by 50% in the midst of them being in talks to sell their company. They both hated me for possibly ruining the sale while also loving me for probably saving them from charges of fraud.

It's not unimaginable to me to think that from the time Savage made the decision to produce the 300 Savage (1920?) until they actually sold one (late 21?) that it could have taken a year or more to get it off the drawing board and onto store shelves. Especially with all the mitigating circumstances mentioned heretofore. There may have been 100 other reasons or possible explanations to explain the delay.

The 300 savage caliber may have been in development for some time before 1920 before Savage made the decision to put it into production. If it was being developed by Savage as a proprietary offering it would have been considered a trade secret until they rolled it out. So you certainly wouldn't have seen anything in print about it before that.