Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors The earliest .284

Rory, I wonder if that 10623xx is the top one in this photo? If so, you need to know some details for your notes.




The rifle has both the rotor cross screw and interior rotor retaining ring, rather than just the retaining ring of standard .284's. All machining looks factory but who knows?

The forearm is a 99F .284 forearm w/o the cutout for barrel boss for the rear sight that the other 99F's had. There are factory machining marks inside the forearm, not hand done.

The barrel is marked .284, with no other Savage markings, but has white highlighted lettering like some of the factory rifles had.

The receiver is marked 99F, has no date stamp, no Savage proof stamp, etc.

The rifle has a matte blued finish.

The stock finish "appears" factory.

No fluted comb, or lightly fluted comb.

The buttplate is much earlier Savage, "SVG"

Front and rear sights appear Savage and in correct locations.


With the forearm being a factory .284 forearm but pretty much everything else pointing to a custom, I would say slim chance it's factory. It is a beauty and well done, but the really early buttplate, matte finish, lack of Savage barrel markings, etc lead me to believe a gunsmith built it. If anyone needs more information, let me know.

Aha.. you pick that up in 2017, I take it?

I'm sorry I don't have a date but that may be about right.

Cool.. that cleans up the one-off early 284, so 1069xxx looks like the early ones, mass production at 1073xxx.

My damaged receiver is serial # 107669x. It has a crack in the receiver behind the bolt. It extends back through the first scope mount hole.

I just noticed the index line on the bottom of the barrel on the "early" 284. That looks like a factory index line.

No barrel address though?

Barrels were available but the snap ring cut is very difficult doubting someone else other than the factory did that.

Can numbers that late be lettered?

No LBC?

No.

Nothing on the barrel but the caliber.

Barrels and wood are easy to change but how can there not be anything on the lever boss?

Matte finish. Maybe they polished it off, I don't know. Maybe it never went down the assembly line and was a prototype? I don't know that either.

Weird. I believe you.

I’m just trying to figure out why they’d have done a prototype with an unstamped barrel. I have a 284 with a Chicopee Falls barrel, that kind of shows there were profiled and stamped barrels sitting around waiting to be bored and chambered.

Not the first 99 to have been reworked to a 284 aftermarket, if it was done aftermarket. Lots of work, but apparently doable.

My prototype 99CD doesn't have anything on the barrel except the caliber. It has an RD serial number.

By 1975 I think most of the models had the model name in the barrel address. So it kind of makes sense they didn't use a barrel stamped for another model on a prototype.

Like i said that cutis very difficult

Chris I know you've been working on the .284 and other receivers for your 450 Bushmaster work, what are you saying about the snap ring cut? Can it be done? What do you think about the early bastardized .284 from a machinists point of view?

What's intriguing to me is the combination of the .284 forearm, barrel index line, and snap ring cuts inside the receiver say factory .284 but the metal finish, buttplate, barrel stamping, earlier serial number, rotor cross screw, things like that say aftermarket .284.

It doesn't matter to me one way or another, just interested in the later transitions. I considered sending you this rifle to rechamber or rebarrel to 450 Bushmaster, but I don't want to do it to a historically significant rifle so I'm torn what to do.

I thought I'd heard of one standard 99 that had been converted to 284.. but maybe I'm mis-remembering?

But another prototype 284 is out there somewhere with an RD serial.