Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Hello! New Model 99 owner, .250-3000

Send $60 to David Royal, p.o. box 1271, Pinedale, Wy., 82941 and I'll send you a signed and inscribed copy. Let me know if you have a preference on how the inscription is worded. If you don't have a preference, I'll inscribe it "to (your name) from the author". Thanks, David

Too long for a pre-1960 99 in 250-3000, they are over 1" long. They won't stabiliize worth squat.

As gnoahhh said, probably will work at least pretty well if you pull the plastic nose off.

I'd personally not use it on deer, tends to do a lot of damage to the meat from what I've heard. If they stabilize well then great for paper/varmints/etc.

The 87gr Speer Hot Cores if you can find them. Good bullet, stabilizes beautifully.

You should also get a copy of Calhoun’s book. See info at bottom of one of his posts in this thread.

Just went into my load books and found some likely recipes for this venerable cartridge. Out of sheer luck, I had happened to secure an 8lb jug of Varget (a temperature stabilized powder, no-less!) for some AR-10 .308 rounds I was reloading during the height of the Covid mess, and...back during the great primer famine (during the Janet Reno/Bill Clinton reign in the 90s) I had also secured a goodly batch of small rifle primers. Planning on combining all of that with the 87gr Speer Hot Cores that Calhoun recommends. I'll sleep better tonight.

Those small rifle primers won't do you much good for the .250-3000. Varget is great, just don't get carried away with slower burning stuff - they'll work, of course, but you'll run out of case capacity before your loads "get up to temperature".

An added benefit of loading the 87 grain Speers is that you can use the HotCore version for medium game and the TNT version for varmints. In most rifles they will both shoot to the same approximate POA, or at least they do in my 250-3000 1-14" ROT shooters. They will shoot into the same group in my Winchester/USRA 70 Lightweight Carbine from 1987.

gnoahhh: You're right, Federal 210s (& not the weeny small rifle primers). As we live and learn....

Fortunately, I have lots of them too. Nosler load data below...

[Linked Image]
Header info...

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Varget loads...

Of course, I'll be modifying this for the 87 grain Speers and Federal primers. Should be fun.

Well....it has arrived.




Hmmm...linked BBcode isn't working here. Went with a direct link.










As I had feared, it looks unfired. Neither the bolt face nor the muzzle show evidence of use. A good problem to have, I realize, but not what I was hoping for. Hard to pick out guns in low-light conditions, I fear.

Purty!

Wow, that's in good shape.

Very nice. Love the CC on the lever.

Now all I need is brass.

Those are the ones.

I think @Joe Brady found a shop that had new brass recently, probably gone? If he sees this, maybe he can pass on the info.

I am a big fan of Hot Cors. Not only are they accurate, but performance on game in my experience in all calibers and weights is devastating.

I know there are a lot of good bullets out there, but I would say Nosler Partitions and Speer Hot Cors are my 2 favorite big game bullets although the NP won't shoot worth a damn in most 250-3000s

My second choice to the 87 gr. Hot Cor in the 250-3000 would be the 100 grain cor lokt. I have one rifle that will shoot them to the same POI.

Speer Hot Cors are my absolute favorites.

Doesn't look drilled and tapped, not a mid 50s gun. What is the first 3 or 4 numbers of the serial number on the receiver?

Mike

Mike: Just looked the number up, SN 8352xx, with a very hard to read "19I" lightly stamped in the circle on the lever boss, so...1957 (and not '56)?

Really? 835,2xx?

That's a 1953'ish rifle. Very few 8xx,xxx serial numbers were made and they were made earlier than the number would indicate. Only about 500 numbers in that entire 100,000 serial number range are recorded in the ledgers.

If you look on the front of the lever you should see an oval stamp with 1 or 2 numbers followed by a letter. The letter will be the year it was made (only for 99's made from 1949 to 1970).

E = 1953
F = 1954
G = 1955
etc

My, my, my that 800K SN is kinda the icing on the cake! A rare bird indeed.