Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors What’s in a 99 repair kit?

I can relate!

Good advice!!

I agree as well. I am on the look out for one but nothing inexpensive enough to not interfere with adding to my small collection.
Once I get the gear I will post a report of my first attempt at rifle surgery.

I always shine a small flash light down the buttstock screw hole to make sure the screwdriver blade is in the buttstock screw slot when I NEED to remove a buttstock.
I also learned to assemble and disassemble the receiver with a junk receiver that I had a machinist cut view holes in. This receiver is used in my gun show display so people can see how the 99 action works.

I bought a large Screw driver, I belive was here in the Class.. has a ring brazed around the end with the flat end in the middle, slips down on the screw head. works like a charm wasnt much! one could be made up pretty easy, if one knows how to braze or weld!

Thanks saddlering. That's a good idea. I have a very large screwdriver that I haven't used for anything except removing Savage stocks. A piece of half inch or three quarter inch black iron pipe should be just about right.

I still use a tire iron !! it fits pretty well in the buttstock and is self centering.

I don't think any of my tire irons are small enough to fit the hole in the stock.

You need the one that doubles as a jack handle. Hard to find these days.

Tire iron is the only way to go. The shaft is much larger than a screwdriver and that keeps it centered in the hole, No stock blow out.

I got one of those that doubles as a jack handle. It came with my Dodge 3500 dually and it's too stout to fit in the 99's stock screw hole. I prefer the ring on the screwdriver.

60's- chevy ,gm tire iron jack handle.

I am glad there are some good people who know how to get there 99's working properly. Unfortunately I am not one. Sooo my question is does anyone know a really good Savage 99 gunsmith who can lighten a trigger safely and maybe smooth the action?

Well, Lightfoot, Saddlering, Norm, Fireball, and me, along with a lot of other folks on this forum. You're not likely to walk into your LGS and find anyone that knows anything about a Savage M99. Mostly you'll just get a "huh."

90% of gunsmiths today are mere "fixers" or "tacticool" armorers. Increasingly one is behooved to learn to perform simple tasks oneself or learn to live with broken old rifles.

My local gunsmith says he wouldn't touch the trigger system on a 99 so I'm going to try and find a good qualified smith somewhere.. Thanks for your input anyhow.

Try calling these folks. https://ahlmans.com/ They're good. I just don't know how much they know about 99s.

I'm going to throw in that I'd be more worried about a smith who was confident he could lighten a 99 trigger than I would be of one who said he wouldn't touch it.

Hint: Overdo it, and you're looking at slam fires.

Not saying it can't be done.. but how do you know until after it's done whether he's good or a fool?

Remove the buttstock, clean insides well. Take steel wool and clean the engaging surfaces of the sear. Then, if it's still stiff, find some dummy cartridges (or make one) and work that rig until it smooths out. It wasn't designed to be a lightweight bench trigger, but it also shouldn't be real stiff. Most will loosen up with some cleaning and firing.

I bought a Savage 99 at a gun show for what I thought was a steal of a price. The seller warned me the "safety" had issues and when I slid the tang safety back and forth it was not smooth or consistent so I figured it needed to be cleaned and maybe a safety spring replacement. I sat on the rifle for a long time and then one day decided to mount a scope on it and sight it in. Luckily, the rifle was strapped into a Lead Sled pointing at the target on a very large berm. When I chambered the cartridge the rifle fired the second the lever came to a stop which resulted in a very unexpected slam fire.

Took it apart to find what looked like a home made trigger job done with a Dremel tool.

Years back I bought an article on how to do a trigger job on the Savage 99. All of the trigger parts work in concert together and when you change the surface on one part it also changes the relationship on the other parts. A little to much smoothing and polishing on one bearing surface will ruin the entire function of the entire trigger assembly. Earlier pre-mill triggers supposedly respond to slicking up better than post mill actions according to what I have read which makes sense due to real machined parts versus steel stampings. One of these days I am going to look into this and perhaps try it, but so far I do not have a 99 rifle who's trigger is so bad it needs work except for the above screwed up rifle I am going to replace with NOS parts.

Bottom-line is that if you have trigger work done, it has to be someone with a lot of experience with Savage 99's and with a track record of satisfied customers or you are taking a very large risk.

And if you do get it done, make sure your barrel is pointing somewhere that won't hurt anyone if it slam fires when you pull the lever home.

With a pre-mil 99, merely polishing the trigger/sear mating surfaces with a hard stone or crocus cloth with a hard backer is risk free- as long as you don't go crazy and just stop when the surfaces are polished without altering the geometry of the connection. That little task is all one should do and it results in a markedly better trigger pull (but probably still not a pull comparable to what riflemen have come to expect in modern rifles like Rory said). You're polishing a little bit, not excavating a lot of steel. A tiny drop of quality gun oil is then icing on the cake. Where idiots get themselves in trouble is when they try to eliminate creep in the trigger by shortening the nose of either the trigger or hammer, or both. Then is when slam fires occur. 'Tain't rocket science, nor is it voodoo, or alchemy- it's just plain common sense.

I pull the parts out and rub the surfaces on a hard black Arkansas oil stone, not vice-versa. Such stones used to be a staple in every gunsmith's tool kit.

I can't speak of post-mil 99 triggers. Never owned one, never messed with one, probably never will.