Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors A premil .. postmil?

That's the best way I can think of to describe it.

1) It's a premil serial numbered rifle, serial number 967,9xx. Chicopee Falls barrel.
2) Tang safety, no cut by the trigger for a lever safety at all (seller emailed me a picture)
3) Gold trigger
4) 1960 date code on lever boss (seller emailed me a picture)

I don't think we've ever seen a premil 99 that didn't have a lever safety. Or any premil finished at Westfield that was made into anything but a 99E. Seems this has to either fall into:
1) Prototype for tang safety
2) A receiver that made it far enough through production at Chicopee Falls to be serial numbered, but not far enough to have the lever safety groove cut by the trigger. Then finished at Westfield as a tang safety.

Considering it has a 1960 date code, I presume it was #2. I would think with the number of changes the tang safety receivers had, that most prototypes would have been done earlier in 1959 to test/document manufacturing processes for 1960 introduction. But maybe it was a prototype..

Wonder how many others might be out there, and we don't see them because the seller doesn't give a serial number or we just look past when we see the gold trigger? Hmm..

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/913095898

SAVAGE 99 F 308 WIN 1959 99F NICE !

White line spacer on the grip cap? Standard on some models? Maybe an additional prototype add on....

I'm presuming the white line spacers were added by an owner when they became popular later in the 60's and 70's. Easy to do, I've had several earlier 99's with them having been added.

^^^^^^^^ Beat me to it. Not diggin' the spacers.

Since the internals of the pre mil / post mil are vastly different the receiver has to be milled for post mil parts. I'd say it is in effect mis-stamped with the pre mil SN.

I almost bit.

If the date code had been 1959, I'd have been chasing it like crazy. Probably still should have.

Yeah, I'd love to have a peek inside the receiver.

Whatever it is, it's just a manufacturing anomaly. It's a post mil gun using an old serial number receiver.

For what its worth, I'd call it an "Overlap-Mil." That period of production where some premils had post mil traits and vice versa.

Except it's not. There's no slotted groove by the trigger for a lever safety, so it was manufactured as a tang safety. Pull out your 1960/1961 postmils and you'll find there are slots cut on the bottom of the receiver for the lever and trigger, but that's it. All the premils also have a groove running back from the trigger that the safety slides in. No groove on this gun.

Like Mike said, I'd love to see inside it.

I still think the outside was finished to the point of being serial numbered in 1959, but they hadn't done the inside grinding/fitting work.

Yup, and I bet there's more than 1 in existence.

Same discussion we've had on all the transition overlap guns. I just measured the 99F Chicopee marked 250-3000 barrel I have on the DL I put together and it measures 1-10" twist exactly.

The answer is partially built in Chicopee to one set of specs but not finished, then completed in Westfield to another set of specs. Whether you're talking barrel, receiver, marked, unmarked, serialed or not, it's all the same scenario IMO. A part was partially made in one location or using one set of tooling and finished at 'nother.

Am I making any sense today? LOL

Super cool gun btw. I should have bought it to fit in with my collection.

Yah! Watsamatau?!

That's a good comparison, I think it is like at least some of the Chicopee Falls barrels on 1960+ rifles. Not sure I'll go so far as to say all of them.. but some.

Since finding a Chicopee Falls stamped 284 Win barrel on my 1964 99DL, I think at least some of these late barrels were stamped barrel blanks from Chicopee Falls that hadn't been bored out yet. Kind of like this receiver. So eventually Savage pulled it off the shelf and bored it out to 1960+ mfr'ing specs.

I wonder if it feeds properly?

I also wonder if it could be a tinker bell special or something carried down the line by a former employee?

I wouldn't have bought it. To many how comes....

Feeding shouldn't be an issue. The magazine change came at 900K. Everything back of that changed at the 1 mill mark.

Assuming it was milled for post mil parts like you stated in an earlier post.

Do we know that it was?

That would be a leap of faith for me to pay 1000 dollars for that gun sight unseen.