Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 99F 30-30 with 22" barrel with integral front sight

I don’t recall posting about this 99F 30-30 with an odd barrel in this forum. I put some pics in the image gallery back in February, link here: https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...f-with-original-22-integral-sight-barrel

What is odd about this 99F 30-30 is it has a 22", short integral front sight barrel that is serial numbered (last 3) to the receiver (285394). I don’t recall seeing a 22” short integral front sight barrel, except on a .250-3000. Murray says the 99F .30-30 was initially a 20” tapered light weight barrel. He says the 99F 30-30 changed to a raised ramp “featherweight” 22 inch barrel in 1926/27.

Based on the serial number alone, I would date this rifle to 1926. However, the top barrel stamp is Style 6 which, according to Murray, was used 1927-28 in SN range 295k-315k. So this appears to have been assembled in 1927-28ish, when Savage changed the 99F barrel length from 20" to 22".

Anyone seen a 22” .30-30 with short integral front sight barrel before?

Also, my understanding is that high gloss varnish finish was also used in this timeframe.

Never heard of a 30-30 with 22" barrel and integral sight.

Never

EVER

Say never

Nothing surprises me anymore

Just sayin....

There were a lot of changes going on in that time period when Savage was changing from the lightweight to medium weight barrel.

I'm going to join the party on this one.

David that 99E sent you pictures of a few months back is coming home, I just traded a pretty rare Australian pump action 22 to the guy who bought it from me, solid frame 22" 22 hi power but from memory you reckoned the barrel address did not match the E time frame. Should have it in a week or so

Johno

I have a 20" but not 22.

I wouldn't touch that line with a 10 foot pole...

You just did!

Another option might be that it was returned for a longer or different caliber brl and the older brl blank was used to made it look the same and fit the original forearm. It is only the brl that is out of sink but clearly marked as correct to the rifle.

The log sheets at the time show production & shipping date, caliber and model. It appears if there was anything extra done then a Job number was added. Too bad we don't have those records.

Okay.. a question and a point.

1) What serial number range did the 30-30/303/22HP go from 20" barrels on 99F/99G to 22"?

2) From my trip up to the Northeast, it seems the 99F/99G went from integral front sight to ramp front sight at 299,000 (give or take few hundreds).

Might be a narrow range from yours to the 299,000 where 30-30/303/22HP were 22" and integral front sight?

Don't forget that front sights went from small (short) on a featherweight brl to large (long) on a featherweight brl to large on a medium weight brl to raised ramp on a medium weight brl. All this happened in a short time span so I doubt that there was much uniformity as to when changes were made with in calibers and models.

You are correct that we should be able to identify a start time but it might only be within a model or caliber or barrel length or some combination of those.

It would be logical that the 30-30/303/22HP all went from 20" to 22" simultaneously, which probably means it didn't happen that way.

I have very few 99's from around the 1926-1927 period.. in fact, not sure I have any. 1924 then 1928..

Who has 99E/99F's/99G's in 303/30-30/22HP from 280,000 to 300,000? Barrel length? Barrel profile? Front sight style?

Anybody with 99A/99B/99C/99D's in this range may as well answer also, we'll get all the info at once.

I must not have as tidy of records as you blokes, that's a major project for me to check.

Which leads us to, how do you organize your data? Maybe deserves it's own thread....

List of guns by serial number/model/cartridge with notes on sights, special orders, etc. After that, I try to take pictures of most of them and leave them on my computer. 95% of the time I don't need to pull anything out to get info beyond that.

99E 22 HP, serial # 2692xx, 20 " lightweight barrel, short integral front sight base (the same setup that had been around for a number of years for lightweight barrel models). DOB 1924 99G 303, serial #2759xx, 20" lightweight barrel, longer integral sight base (transition sight) with pinned front sight DOB 1925. 99G .300 Savage, 24" medium weight barrel, serial #2909xx, longer integral base with pinned front sight very similar to serial # 2759xx DOB 1926. 99K, 300 Savage, 24" medium weight barrel, long integral base with front sight dovetailed into the base DOB 1928. This is the configuration continued until the mid 1950's. David

David, do you have a serial for the 99-K with the raised ramp front sight?

The 99K is 3094xx. I thought I had included it. I also have a 99 H in that serial number range but didn't include it because it's not pertinent to the subject. It's a .303, 20" medium weight barrel, front sight dovetailed directly into the barrel, serial# 2759xx, dob 1925. David

While we are on the front sight subject, how is the later ramped sight base attached to the barrel? I'm assuming it is not part of the barrel like the earlier integral version.

All of them have bases that are integral to the barrel.
pic shows: left 1925 99G with a lightweight barrel, sight base integral to the barrel; middle 1926 99G with a medium weight barrel, sight base integral to the barrel and a 1928 99K with a medium barrel, sight base integral to the barrel and the front sight dovetailed to the sight base. The earlier two have the sight pinned to the sight base.

David

Yes, you are correct that didn't change till the 50' F's went into production. Thanks David.

Seems like a hard way to produce a barrel with a sight base, but I'm no machinest. Wonder why it took that long for a design change.

99G SN 310,xxx here. Always figured those integral and ramp sights to be labor intensive.