Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage Heat Treatment

Thanks to Skidrow for locating letters that Mark Benenson received from Savage on the issue of heat treatment of the receivers.

I have the letters in PDF format if anyone wants me to email a copy, drop me a PM.

That is interesting and makes me wonder how Savage re-tempered the steel. The Springfield and Rock Island arsenals had a problem with brittle receivers in the early 1903 rifles and the government came to the conclusion that those guns could not be fixed by additional heat treating. Of course I know just enough about metallurgy to ask stupid questions, but how did they do that? Would the steel in the older 99s have been tempered to a harder or softer degree than later guns?

I assume that .250's below 266K are OK?

I have three .300's with serial numbers lower than 266,000 so hopefully they were tempered also. I think we've kicked this question around before. David

Jeff, I don't think it's fair to compare the low number Springfield to the Savages of post-90,000. The Springfields were made from very low carbon steel, and carburized (case hardened) for wear ability and strength enhancement. Those buggers have glass hard surfaces that files just glance right off of and are a holy terror to try and drill and tap.The 1899 receivers I have messed with weren't, that I could tell- being relatively easily file-able, which tells me they were of some alloy that responded to through heat treatment not just a hard "glaze" on the surface. That could mean a simple high carbon steel, or a more complex alloy. Who knows?

As for would the later guns be "harder" or "softer", that's a subjective question. The strength characteristics of different steels is a complex and bewildering field with alloys designed for myriad applications. A glass hard steel alloy (through hardened) has little or no compressability or elasticity and not be able to withstand the sudden shock of tremendous pressure as well as a softer simpler alloy (staying put until its limits are reached and then shattering gloriously), but that soft alloy on the other hand can reach its limit of elasticity early on and fail accordingly. It takes a fine balance between the two characteristics to make a good gun steel, a carefully choreographed ballet between alloy selection and heat treatment. Those metallurgists of 100 years ago flew by the seat of their pants for the most part and developed by trial and error the alloys that evolved into what we take for granted today.

The guys who did the actual heat treating in the factories worked the furnaces by eye and by feel, with knowledge learned the old fashioned way- by serving apprenticeships and learning the "feel" of their craft. Accurate temperature gauges were just coming onto the scene immediately pre-WWI, which were the first big step in taking heat treating from an art to a science. It is precisely what got Springfield Armory's collective asses in a sling as we plunged into the Great War. Those old guys were darned good at it, but they worked one shift only and gauged the temperature of their work by sunlight that lit the furnace rooms through huge skylights. All was well and the carburized low carbon steel receivers they produced were more than up the task of a service rifle (the soft inner core of the receiver steel withstood the shock while the hard glazed surface made for superb wear characteristics, and also added some strength to the whole thing). It was when they went to 'round the clock production (to correct a woeful lack of service rifles with which to arm a burgeoning Army) and hired a slew of newbies to staff the night shifts that the troubles began. Those well meaning guys didn't have the practiced "eyes" of the old hands, and were working under the handicap of artificial light instead of sunlight which gives appearances of different colors to the steel as it's heated- a double whammy which led to a series of rifle failures and caused the Armory to seek out different protocols (and purchase a bunch of new-fangled pyrometers to accurately gauge the heat of their furnaces and the product coming out of them). I never read of such shenanigans at any of the commercial gun manufacturers.

I have every faith that Savage used proper steel and proper heat treatment on the rifles that bore the "new" high pressure smokeless cartridges.

I still miss Mark Benenson and his wealth of knowledge and trove of information. I knew him mainly on another forum where he and Michael Petrov generously shared their knowledge, insight, and research of the world of pre-war rifles and the construction thereof. He supplied me with a couple Krag actions several years ago, one of which is the heart of my latest project.

Gary - thanks for the explanation. I wasn't skeptical, I just didn't know how they did it and did offer the caveat of knowing just enough about metallurgy to ask stupid questions. Some people say that there is no such thing as a stupid question. To them I say, oh yeah - just hang around me for awhile and I'll change your mind on that one.

In the earlier days of the Forum, rifles would turn up that had the Savage Model 99 stamping on the receiver ring that dated to earlier dates of production. If a rifle was sent back to the factory for work why would the receiver ring get stamped? I think it was during these postings that the Mark posted these letters.

It appears that receivers used on .250-3000 and .300 rifles were always treated. It was only the receivers that were used with rimmed cartridges prior to serial 266,000 that are of concern when converting to other calibers.(rimmed calibers/reworded)

Thanks, Mike, George and Mark, for posting this info.

266,000 is an odd break point.

It almost sounds as though the factory is saying there were no 250-3000 or 300 Savage rifles before 266,000. Which is silly, there is 3 years worth of 300 Savage rifles at that point and 10 years of 250-3000's.

266,000 would be fall of 1924. Anybody have a 1925 catalog they can look through to see if there's any mention of new heat treatment?

Gary's post reminded me something I heard while working on my book. Someone said the post WWII Savage rifles had improved metallurgy that was developed during WWII. Someone else said they didn't think so so I didn't include it in the book. Anyone have any input on this? Thanks, David

WWII, or WWI?

It would seem logical that Savage would have taken advantage of any improvements widely available. I'd bet that was a consideration when building the 900K guns for the .308 cartridge family.

As to the 266K discussion; I think Rick sums it up best:
"It appears that receivers used on .250-3000 and .300 rifles were always treated. It was only the receivers that were used with rimmed cartridges prior to serial 266,000 that are of concern when converting to other calibers."

We'll never know unless someone unearths some engineering records or finds an old codger still alive who was involved.

The way I read the letter is that Savage is referring to calibers other than the .250 and .300 and that the .250 and .300 were already treated. Would they state to not convert to the .250 or .300 without heat treating yet produce the same that was not treated?

Is there anyway a couple "beater" receivers could be tested to determine the presence/absence or degree of heat treatment? This is just a hypothetical spit ball I'm throwin' out here.

Where's RAM when you need him?

I think this is reaching the stage of picking the fly chit outa the pepper.

Could be, but I'm not concerned about things from a safety standpoint. I'm just interested in the technical stuff.

Certainly. One can hardness test one at various points with a Rockwell Hardness tester and not leave anything behind but small punch marks. You could also have the steel analyzed to determine its alloy content. But, you would have to do a bunch to get a decent idea of when the shifts in "recipes" occurred. A huge expensive undertaking.

If they heat treated the .250-3000 and the .300, but not the .other calibers, I wonder how they kept track of which receivers had the better heat treated and which were not as they headed to assembly.

I have a hard time envisioning Savage trying to save a dime by only heat treating some receivers for 10 years.

When did they start requiring heat treating those receivers? 30's? 40's?

Interesting Letters. Thanks Mike & George.

I interpret the message same as Rick99 although the some questions remain.

We understand that the Savage factory was fairly state-of-the-art 1903-1908, could mass produce product and I can envision process flow to accommodate this which included receiver treating of some sort at say ~ 10,000/year +/-.

With the addition of the 250-3000 in 1914 perhaps Savage realized some additional tempering was required and a new/different tempering process was available. Adding an additional process flow for 250-3000 product wouldn't be difficult and would only represent a small percentage of total production.

Add in the .300 savage in 1920 to the "250-3000" process flow and the percentage of total production of these two calibers would increase. The 250-3000 & .300 both became fairly popular in their day and while those production numbers increased, others likely fell.

At some point thereafter Savage decided to throw the switch and use only "the new" tempering process across the board. ?? Just a theory...

That's as cogent as as any theory yet, Rick.

It'll all be guesswork until somebody finds donor actions in 303 Savage and 250-3000 that are very near in each other in serial numbers from 1915 or so to have tested.

I know which I'd bet. Might be wrong, but especially in the 1910's Savage was all about quality. I just can't see them selling two different qualities of steel on their guns - especially since the receivers are totally interchangeable except for rotors/etc.

This would make logical sense; except then why would the 1954 letter say that if the factory did convert one under 266K, they tempered it as part of the conversion process.

Rick's theory makes sense on the limited data we have. To that theory, I'd add (based only on theory) that Savage may have modified the heat treatment again in the 50s when they introduced the Win calibers.

Heck, if we had the enigeering records, we might find out that they tweaked the heat treatment process many times over the years as technology evolved.

Makes sense to me. But the question I have is did Savage start heat treating their receivers at a certain date - meaning that all receivers prior to that date were not heat treated? I guess I could also ask if the 1895s were heat treated or if Savage just used the receivers in the condition in which they left the forge?

That's my gut feeling too, Keith. My guess is also that while the pre-266K receivers were plenty good enough and employed a good alloy/heat treatment protocol that has stood the test of time, metallurgists by 1954 had hit upon an even better heat treating protocol that made that alloy even stronger and prompted Savage to employ it retroactively at every opportunity. I do have to wonder though why they would have bothered since that $10 they charged for doing it couldn't possibly have covered the cost of stripping the action, re-heat treating it, and then bluing and re-assembling it- even in 1954 dollars.

Does anybody know if any of the other Big Makers did such things with their old guns, ie: did Winchester or Remington ever replace/re-heat treat old receivers as they came back for repair generations later?

Jeff, without knowing what steel alloy they used at any point in their history it would be difficult to tell. Reference my earlier post re: analyzing the steel and hardness.

Has anybody ever queried JTC about this? Having been there in the "old days" as (if I remember correctly) an inspector, he might have some insight.

Somebody should sit down with JTC and any other old codgers in their 80's-90's who worked at Savage in the 40's-80's and interview them in depth. Pick their brains clean of all esoteric knowledge they possess, for posterity. They would possess knowledge of the inner workings that long pre-dates their time there because as young guys they undoubtedly "shot the sh*t" with old guys who were nearing retirement then which would take the living history right back to the early days of the company. Publish said interviews and then we would have a definitive answer for a lot of these questions which we chase our tails over regularly here on this forum. I would rather see that then yet another coffee table book (as neat as they are).

I'm reminded of an "art film" recently done about the history of the National Brewing Company in Baltimore. (Brewers of National Bohemian, "Natty Boh".) after the hour long film there was a panel discussion with old employees of the now defunct brewery which was very entertaining and offered insight into the workings of the company, and dispelled many local myths and legends (and created more legends) about this iconic beer which helped define Baltimore in the 40's-80's.

That's my feeling.. all pre-266,000 receivers were created the same, but not up to 1954 standards.

I even have a sample sitting at home.. early 20's 99G in 300 that was redone by the factory in 1952. Well, at least it was restocked by the factory - I'm personally of the belief they also reblued/case colored the lever. Now I might have to strip the stock off and look for any odd stamps/etc.

I think the main point of all this being that we warn against converting rimmed caliber pre-266,000 actions to .250 or .300 Savage...or other similar non-Savage used rounds.

We haven't checked the receivers for special markings that I know of. Might be worth a look.

But Savage would do exactly that in 1961, with no mention of retempering or rebluing. I think Loggah posted this originally?

There is a $5 extra on some....maybe heat treating? I don't know.

I was referring to conversion outside of the factory. We don't know what they did at the factory when converting down through the years.

I think its interesting simply from the standpoint of identifying things that were done by the factory to rebuild, improve or modernize older 99s. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there isn't a large or cohesive body of knowledge on such characteristics and many have likely been mistaken for mods that were done by individual owners or independent gunsmiths. I'm not one of the guys who would consider rechambering an older 99 to modern caliber in the first place.

Or just the cost of replacing all the internals rather than just barrel?

How far would $5 go in 1961? I wouldn't know, wasn't around yet.

I finally found a question on this thread that I can answer! From me to the next guy, just like today!

It would buy 25 to 30 gal of gasoline.

I was around in 61 you could buy 18 to 20 gal. of gas for $5.00 most gas customer's would only get one or two dollars

worth of gas at a time 6-7.00 would fill most cars.In 1963 we opened a new gas station had a gas war in our two gas station town

and sold gas for .23 a gal.

Minimum wage was $1.00 an hour. it went to $1.25 in '63 and my boss cut out my 4 hours of overtime.
In the earlier post I was referring to WWII. David

Converting a 300 to a 30-30 is $50, but a 30-30 to 300 is $55.. argues against it being price of the parts since both changes involve changing same parts out.