Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage 99 "Trapper"

The trick is the lightened F buttstock.

Hmm, didn’t think about that. Are you using a stock from the F or making modifications?

I'm going to put lightning holes in the aftermarket stock on my shortened 99F. It is a little butt heavy now.

S99VG, anyone would be hard pressed to disagree with you on this point. My 92 carbine is about perfect in terms of Handiness, like a Proto wrench in my hands. Problem is the limitations on the cartridges that come with the 92 and 94 for longer distances and they have a Winchester action that have far too many parts for my taste.

I do have a Pre War Savage 99 Carbine in .303 that comes very close in handiness to the 92 although I do not think anything will ever beat the 92/94 for handiness.

I had a Marlin 94 in 44 mag I liked, though I think the Winchester/Browning 92s are a bit better. I had thought about taking the barrel down to 18-inches but I don’t have It anymore. But the 1894 Marlin still catches my attention.

Not modified. I think one of my carbines is an F and the other is probably an EG butt.

Perhaps the root of y'all's theory lies in the Winchester/Marlin magazine tube under their barrels, putting a bit of weight up forward to counterbalance the buttheavy-ness of the trapper configuration. The Savage obviously is devoid of that feature and the more barrel that's removed the more butt heavy it becomes. Steelhead is right. At what point does hollowing the butt stock become a diminishing return strength-wise?

Having spent a lot of hours chasing grouse in some pretty godawful thick bush (laurel/pine/greenbriar choked boulder-strewn hill sides), I never felt handicapped in the least with 28", and sometimes longer, shotgun barrels. Ditto the time spent deer hunting in the same terrain with 36-40" barreled traditional muzzle loaders. Granted, grouse and deer don't present a potentially frightful challenge as do bears, but still when the chips are down I would welcome the advantage of a weight forward long gun for instinctive offhand shooting.

If you put a 94 Winchester with a 20-inch barrel and a 99 Savage with a 20-inch barrel side by site the Savage is the longer package of the two. That, coupled with the cock on closing action just makes the "Trapper" 99 a little more awkward. My old man was a mechanic (starting on bombers in the 8th Air Force and progressing through International Trucks and John Deere tractors) who taught me the subtle yet major differences in tool design. There's a reason why Snap On and Mac are the "go to" mechanics tools. Their designs are simply refined better for getting things done that say Craftsman tools (which, if they are still in business, are a hell of a deal for the garage mechanic). Same thing with Marshalltown for masons. Try using a crappy ill-balanced trowel all day long and then telling me it isn't a wrist breaker. I like the 99 but I don't find it the top choice for a compact lever action carbine - which isn't saying it (obviously) can't be done.

Heres a 303 trapper i built years ago ,the barrel had a bulge so it got shortened to 16 1/2". With the heavy barrel it balances perfectly. but it is not that light. It is on a takedown frame so its pretty short when dis- assembled. Don

Loggah,

How is that "99-carbine" for hunting in the "thick stuff" & what load do you use??

yours, tex

To be truthfull i have never even fired it ,since i put it together!! I was going to use it as a "skidder" gun but never did. I have quite a few i have never shot. Not enough time to use them all ! Don

S99VG,
Total overall length may wind up being a major deciding factor for me. My trapper is right at 34". I have attached a magazine tube clamp style sling swivel ~2.5" from the barrel which puts the muzzle right at ear height or thereabouts when standing. I was initially concerned with safety of having the muzzle that close to my head but I am VERY strict about never carrying the gun with the sling when loaded. By carrying in this manner I can navigate the mountain laurel and rhododendron thickets without having the barrel snag on every limb and twig. I;m often on hands and knees when getting hear a bear and this capability is the biggest advantage about the trapper length rifle for my purposes. I'm willing to give up a little on the balance scale for overall length. Since I started carrying it I have had several offers to buy.


Several folks expressed a concern about balance. While a 99F might be the lightest option for me I am thinking one of the other models with the less tapered barrel may provide a better balance without giving up too much in weight. As described above its the overall length and profile while carrying over the shoulder that really is key. On the topics of shotguns: given the minimum barrel length of 18.5" and the slightly ( maybe perceived) longer receiver length of most shotguns I think the overall length would create problems.

This one is a bit off balance, but will do 1.5" or so groups at 100 yards with 150 grain corelokt. Youngest son's rifle. He got a nice doe in 2017 with it. IIRC it is from 1937 or 1938. It came that way.

Makes more sense.

As for shotguns, I automatically think double gun when someone says shotgun. Weird in this day and age I suppose. An 18.5" double gun would make for a crazy short gun, and provide two shots quicker than an autoloader (given double triggers). Picture the "Lupos" slung over the shoulders of Sicilian paisanos.

You could always look for a 60s vintage 99E. I think they all pretty much came with 20-inch barrela and Savage retained the lever safety on that model. The E just doesn't have the cartridge counter, which one could argue makes for a more sealed and protected action.

gnoahhh,

TRUST ME, my old "Lupara" stopped many an ugly "bar brawl, out on the county line", when I was a Texas City Marshal in the 1970's. W/O firing a shot. = A "sawed-off" 12-gauge DB looks like a howitzer from "the business end".
(I never shot any living thing with the "sawed-off" except a rabid stray dog.)

yours, tex

DarlaG, That intimidating hole in the Navy's Remington Model 870 riot guns was my argument for us being armed with a shotgun for disarming some pretty wrought up South Vietnamese pilots during the evacuation of Saigon. We were the guys pushing the South Vietnamese Huey's off the helo decks of the Navy ships.

wyo1895,

Fyi, the last known uniformed US soldier, who left Saigon, was a MP E-6, who backed up the ramp of a CH-47, while holding a 870 riot-gun. = NOBODY tried to follow him aboard, either.

There is a framed photo of him in the MP Museum at "Fort Lost in the Woods".

ADDENDA: I spent about half of my Army career OCONUS & always found it "rather odd" that "foreigners", even in nations where FULL-AUTO firearms are commonplace (& even in places where the local police routinely are armed with SMG), see our US Armed Forces riot-shotguns as "excessively brutal"

yours, tex

The best defense is too make the b.....d afraid of you. I was the senior Marine on the USS Mobile and at the meeting arming us with 1911's or M1's was favored by the XO and several others. I favored the 870 for the intimidation factor plus it was powerful enough to reach anywhere on the flight deck. We were dealing with some really scared soldiers who were our allies. We sure didn't want to shoot any of them but they were armed and SCARED. We had to show them who was boss. I was never in country but had some interesting experiences. I covered these in an article that appeared in a copy of "Military" magazine about the middle of 2017.

wyo1895,

YEP.

yours, tex