Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage 99 with barrel of unknow caliber

I'm helping Brother-in-Law's widow deal with dispensation of his gun collection. One of the rifles is a Savage 99 (Model R?) with "lever boss" marking of "26A". I'm assuming a 1949 mfg date. It was re-barreled sometime after mfg, and NO caliber marking on barrel. I've looked at every square inch - nothing. Looks like a professional job though. Any suggestions on how to identify chambering? Would there have been any other modifications necessary assuming whoever changed barrels did NOT retain the same caliber/chambering? TIA!

Did you take the forearm off? What size is the hole in the end of the barrel? Do you have anything for ammo you can try and say yay or nay this or that does or does not fit and perhaps narrow it down? I'd start with bore size, and check any short action ammo you have that bore size.

Or you could just take a 22-250 cartridge and touch it off, see what it comes out! (KIDDING! DO NOT DO THIS)

You need to do a chamber cast, or get a gunsmith to do it for you. Should be pretty cheap, or there's instructions on youtube on how to do it yourself. Basically you create a mold of the chamber after plugging up the bore and then measure the dimensions and compare to cartridges.

The good part of getting a gunsmith to do the chamber case is that you can have him stamp the cartridge on the barrel right after the cast.

Yup, took the forearm off...absolutely no markings anywhere. I was hoping the gunsmith would have left some clue, but alas, that's not the case.

Thanks Calhoun, I think that's where I'm going to have to go. I was (CAREFULLY!) able to insert a .308 round into the chamber and it appears to fit, but definitely too long to fit into the rotary chamber. I seems highly unlikely that someone would rebarrel a 99 into .308 (on a 1949 action) when a .308 cartridge would not fit into the magazine! Cerrosafe chamber mold by a gunsmith it is! Thanks all for your input!

We've seen a couple of early 99's fitted with 308 barrels that made them into a single shot rifles. So if the 308 cartridge fit.. that's my guess, but you still need to chamber cast it to be sure. Let us know!

BFFire, where are you?

One test you can try is to put a piece of Duct tape on the base of a 308 win cartridge and insert it in the chamber and close the bolt. If it has resistance because the tape makes it too tight it's almost certainly a 308 win or a shell based on the 308 (338 Federal or 358 Win) but the 308 has a longer shoulder dimension then a 300 Savage so if it chambers, it's not a 300. If it works easily with a factory 308 cartridge and gits hard with the tape on it's base you have about 99.9% chance it's something based on the 308 shell and if the bore is 30 caliber you seem to have a 308 Win.

The 308 bullet will not enter the throat if it was a 7-08, 260 or 243.

The cartridge would not fit at all in a 30-30, 303 Savage, or 250 Savage.

this, times 2

Sounds like someone who called himself a gunsmith really screwed up. Made a big mistake and didn't want to admit it by stamping the caliber on the barrel. Or maybe bubba did it.

I've got a Savage model 11 with an aftermarket 250 Savage barrel on it that the gunsmith never bothered to stamp. I'm getting it done soon, I think, but just because it's unstamped doesn't mean it was "bubba'd". Lazy a** gunsmith maybe...

I consider not stamping the barrel a dangerous practice. Someone gets hurt by putting the wrong ammo in the gun it opens the gunsmith up to a lawsuit if he can be found.

I agree it's dangerous (which is why I'm getting it fixed), not sure he'd be liable for somebody else's massive stupidity. I'd have taken it back to him except that a 1 week wait that he quoted me to screw a Savage 110 barrel on turned into a 9 week wait, and by not stamping it he lost all my future business.

Those leftover barrels Savage let out a few years ago, the 22-250 isn't marked. At least mine isn't. Maybe it should be.

The left over Savage 7-08 barrel I got did not have 7-08 stamped but the gunsmith I had put the barrel on a DL did stamp 7-08 on barrel.

Yeah, mine has nothing stamped on it.

But there are markings on the savage barrels under the forend in the chamber area. They do not make sense but assuredly thet ref caliber.


If a customer does not want the caliber market it does not happen. May be wrong on that process but to each there own. Have had many rifles come in unmarked the owners wanted caliber. It is much less expensive to mark the caliber on barreling than after the fact.