Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Ever have a 99 with a terrible trigger?

I do actually. I wish the triggers were reversed. The takedown isn't drilled and tapped and doesn't need that crisp, light trigger while the Featherlight is and wears a Nikon ProStaff and shows impressive accuracy potential even with the sad trigger

Moosemike, are you implying that a trigger has been successfully worked on? Holy Moses, stop the presses.

We can build computers the size of a gnat and grow meat in a petri dish but whatever you do, don't get anywhere near that Savage trigger!

LOL

Have a 1960 Savage 99... 300 Savage that has a fairly strong trigger pull. And at one point [at about age 45 ] the magazine rotor didnt rotate very well.

Am not experienced in messing with these things, but this is what I tried...

Did as some of the above comments suggested. Removed the stock and cleaned things up. No, there was not much to clean. Used a magic marker to color those two bearing surfaces... [not sure what they are called.] Dry Fired the rifle several times to see how the marker showed how the surfaces engaged. No, they were not exactly planar and parallel. Used the finest small sharpening stone i had to carefully gently polish the surfaces. Used some lithium grease to slick up those surfaces a little. Made sure all the other moving parts and surfaces moved freely. The trigger pull is still a little stiff, but seems better.
Also learned that the strong trigger pull tended to pull my trigger hand forward while i was pulling the trigger. So I learned to use a really strong grip with the rest of my hand to keep it from creeping forward. You; guys probably had figured that out a long time ago, but i am a slow learner.
Now I feed the 99 loads i worked up: 150 gr Hornady SP pushed by a moderate load of IMR 4320 . [am hoarding my supply of this powder] The Scope is a 1964 Weaver K4 with a post/cross hair. When i am having a good day off a bench the rig will shoot 1 MOA-->1.5 MOA.

The sticky rotor problem happens because the action allows crud to fall down in. I used an exploded diagram of the action to see how to remove the brass rotor out the front of the action with the fore end removed. Soaked the rotor in gasoline in a Ziploc bag. 2 soakings, then washed it well with Coleman stove fuel which evaporates nicely. The rotor action loosened up well. Reassembled it properly [ I think :-) ]

This 99 is the first rifle i ever bought. We took our share of whitetails together. In a few years it will go to my son.

In my pre-mil 99s, I sometimes had good luck reducing trigger pull weight a slight bit by adding one or more small, thin, flat washers under the trigger return spring. This trigger pull weight hack is reversible so if it is not to your liking, just remove the added washer(s).

Credit where credit is due. The hack did not originate with me. IIRC, I read about it in one of John Barsness's magazine articles.

I have had some with sahweet triggers.

Some not so much.

Not many gunsmith people I been around like working on the newer ones.

I think the really older stuff, pre war ..perhaps both of the wars. …. is easier to monkey with.

My 1902 engraved rifle has the nicest trigger of any 1899/99 I've shot. I've been afraid to say anything cause I might jinx it? Any chance that because it was a special order rifle if got a little TLC? Aren't the K's supposed to have some action work?

I don't have engraved rifles, but the triggers on mine are across the board. Ranging from surprisingly good to passable. I will say every one of them improved with a thorough cleaning.

My K has a nice trigger.

Same here; none of mine are terrible, but they do vary greatly. The oldest of the bunch, my 303, is best by leaps and bounds. It's got a pretty good trigger, even by modern standards. My current 300 EG is not great... not terrible, but definitely not good by any stretch of the imagination.