Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 800,000 serial # ??

I don't recall ever seeing any 1950's 99 drilled through the top that made us think it might be factory.

Never say never, but I can't see it.. Course, we saw a 1950's 99R without a serial number but with proof/assembly stamps, so definitely never say never.

Who know's what was going on at Savage with these 800,000 numbered 99's.

All we know is what JTC revealed in a post years ago in response to my question. Calhoun reposted it above.

But he didn't state how many of each model.Obviously there were R's although people here have only seen EG's in the 800,000's.

I have seen an R with factory letter verifying it is one of the 502.

I'd like to compare the serial number of that one with this one.

Maybe they were planning ahead to introduce the number 1,000,000 by 1960 and had to skip a bunch of numbers to get there.

I think the KISS answer is likeliest... once in a while, somebody mis-stamped some guns with the wrong serial numbers. Bad hangover?

Wonder if a guy looked through the logs if they wouldn't find some 700,000 guns produced around the same time, or even 900,000's. We know they made screwups on serial number stamping with things like stamping the same number on multiple rifles.

Btw, John, thanks for confirming there were 99R's made. I always thought there would be, just in low number since EG's outsold the R's by quite a bit at that time.

That could very well be the case. I also believe they wanted a distinct breakpoint for the magazine modification for the .308 cartridges and jumped to 900K to achieve that.

I have 7 in my data, 2 R's, 5 EG's. Two are lettered. One shipped 11/`53, one 8/`54. LBC's are E and F.

I thought maybe the first digit, "6" & "8", of the serial machine were hard to tell apart and every so often they would error and stamp some in the 800,000 range. But the seven I have data on are in the 834xxx and 835xxx range which if was intended to be 6xx,xxx serials would probably have LBC's from 1952 and would not be from 1953/1954. Well so much for that theory!

Sqweeler, if you want to PM your serial and LBC when available I will add it to the list.

Will do Rick.All I know for sure at the moment is the first three is 835.

How does one get a letter on an early 50's gun? I thought there were no records for that period.

Serial is 83504x LBC 3 E.......Which is the year I was born..1953

My R is serial # 83508X drilled for scope and sight

Boss code "E"?

Doug, are the markings on the side of the receiver ring or on top?

Side and it has the tang holes also

So then some had the SAVAGE 99 stamped on top and some on the side.

99R's? Never make generalizations off of a sample of one.

I thought sqweelers is stamped on top and Doug’s on the side.