Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Okay.. this has me confused

I hear you. Savage makes nothing at the moment that remotely interests me.

What is the next big thing?

That is the question that has perplexed all business for the last 2+ centuries.

If you aren't changing in business, you are dying.

The fact that Savage is still in business after 125 years is a testament to their resourcefulness and their longevity.

Not confusing at all is it?

The name survives, but quite a number of corporations under that name have fallen by the wayside. It's been reorganized 3 times in the last 34 years alone.

True that.

But the brand survives.

When you are in business you can't confuse what you want to produce with what you can sell and what you can make money on so you can pay the bills and live to fight another day.

Personally, I don't want to see them produce any more 99's. It would diminish the brand and the value of our collections.

The fact that you can't go to Walmart and buy one suits me just fine.

I wouldn't mind new 99s if they were done well, but I don't trust Savage to do them well. The two newer Savage rifles I owned were quite frankly, trash. Accurate trash, but trash nonetheless, and quickly traded off.

I'd be perfectly content to see someone more competent like Uberti or Miroku make some repros.

I don't buy that. Have you priced an original M1873 Winchester, Colt Peacemaker, M1861 Colt .44 Army lately even though every Italian with a file and a drill press is making repros of them? Ditto Winchester High Walls (and other iconic Winchesters) now being, or having been, made by Miroku.

I respectfully disagree.

We love our Savage's so we are biased in that regard, but they don't generally command the same respect and desirability as the afore mentioned models above in the world of gun collecting.

If that was the case, every Italian with a file and a drill press would be making Savage repros, but umm, they ain't.

And why isn't Miroku making any Savage repros?

Because Savages have a lot of catching up to do. As iconic as we hold them to be, and even with their seeming increase in popularity among collectors, essentially the Great Unwashed Masses still view them as cool efficient hunting rifles. Classic Winchesters and Colts have the advantage of a century of film and TV lore having propelled them to fame too.

Would Italy and Japan make and sell enough 99 repros to be profitable? Probably not because they would have to sell them for over a grand (witness the repros I mentioned above) and right now the woods is full of hunter/shooter grade 99's- plenty to feed the hunger of the hunters- selling in that price range.

Miroku and the Italians stepped up to the plate because even 50-60 years ago when it all started those nice collectable Winchesters and Colts were stupidly high priced and out of reach for the common Joe. (Relatively speaking. Those 50 year ago prices seem stupidly cheap to we moderns today. Inflation is a bitch.)

I stand by my original statement.

Well: I agree with everything you just said.

What was it we were disagreeing on?

I forgot:

Nothing, really.

Couldn't have said it better. The repro market is already a niche market within lever actions, which have already become sort of a niche market themselves. A 99 repro would be a niche within a niche within a niche, so it just wouldn't be a profitable venture at this point in time.

If 99s ever get to a point where they're just crazy expensive for even the most common of models like the E or postwar EG, I could see the Italians maybe tooling up some reproductions, but right now nobody is gonna buy a $1500-2000 repro when there are a lot of originals in decent shape floating around well under a grand.

That said, I'd still buy a repro now in a rare chambering without hesitation, because those have gotten stupid expensive. 😁

With the sharp decline in the popularity of westerns over the past several decades, though, I think the repro market is sort of doomed to eventual extinction, anyway. I just paid about $1400 after tax and transfer and all that fun stuff for a Uberti 1873 Win repro a couple months ago. I cannot imagine there being a whole lot of people in the next generation or two willing to drop that kind of money on a repro "wild west" rifle when the tactical market is all the rage and still expanding now, and vastly cheaper.

Maybe the more comparable reproduction market would be the custom falling blocks that have been (essentially, Hand-)made over the last couple decades. That market isn't about high volume production or sales. And originals are still available at generally lower prices. Are we still dealing with legal patent infringements when talking about copying the Savage 99 action?


Somebody with 99-love (and plenty of disposable cash) has to jump in and commission a prototype getting built...

And as a purely economic exercise, the creation of quality reproductions seems to have only increased the value of the originals.

Any way you slice it, American gun companies will be focusing on the kind of stuff Calhoun opened this thread with. Even "traditional" rifles aren't too traditional anymore, with composite stocks, etc., leading the way. We folks who grew up fantasizing about handmade walnut and blued steel will all have shuffled off this mortal coil by 50 years from now, leaving the middle-aged geezers then to reminisce about the good old days (now) of cool stuff made by the tender mercies of CNC machines.

It used to be technology advanced at a sedate rate, well within ability of regular people to assimilate. Look at not only guns but cars, telecoms, machine tools, etc. Now it occurs at blinding speed such that average folks can't keep up (and which a lot of is propagated by keen engineers who are merely showing off to other engineers or are doing it simply because they can, not because it's needed). I think we children of the 50's-60's are reacting to that by embracing the stuff we can understand, and which reminds us of a slower simpler time. At least I do.

If somebody cranked out a modern 1899, or 1899 reproduction, that was a close remake of an 1899CD - there’d be sales. Probably not enough to interest Savage into doing it, but one of the overseas companies could. Or a 250-3000, or a 99G.. all the patents are long expired, Savage no longer even claims much ownership of the design due to liability reasons.

It’s just marketing and they’ll probably be bought by the demographic with the most disposable income.

There have been rumors of a 1911 series .

We have an alternative deer season here in Missouri. That pistol will sell. The old stryker pistols are sought after for our hunting season. Wish it was in 243 I will probably look at one in a 308

You don't sound confused.

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