Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors WW1 Sav 19?

Hopefully someone will post the picture? Just got done cleaning a military training rifle in 22 lr. All it says is 22lr and manufactured by the savage arms corp on the barrel. I was told it was a WW 1 training rifle. Has a 5 rd clip. Neat peep sight and a hooded front sight. Fantastic condition and a nice shiny bore. Stock goes out almost to the bore. Any idea of value? TY

1919 NRA?

WWI ended in 1918, before the M1919 hit the market. Can't imagine there weren't some test models made in 1918 but if so they weren't funneled to the Army as trainers. Betcha Gene could shed light on it.

The immediate post-war era was a busy time for gunmakers, at least as far as the post-war recession allowed. Winchester was still flogging the last of the Low Wall Winder musket .22 trainers they had left, and Savage showed up at the dance with the 1919. Stevens offered the aging Model 44 in the guise of the 414 Armory (and much later the 417 Walnut Hill). Winchester popped out the brand new Model 52, and Martini's were trickling in from England. For the hunting crowd Savage threw the M1920 hunting rifle on the table, Remington was scrambling to convert M1917 Army rifle production into sporting rifles, and Winchester R&D was tasked with a goal that bore fruition as the Model 54 a few years on. Of course the 1899/99, Winchester 94, and Marlin 36 soldiered right on through because, well, they were/are wonderful hunting tools and they appealed to a huge cross section of hunters, perhaps guys who thought the new bolt gun craze was a passing fad and who needed that rapid fire capability...

All of it was aimed at discharged Doughboy prospective new hunters who were at that point versed heavily in bolt guns, progressive thinking old farts who were prepared to give up their old lever guns, plus the guys flocking to the relatively new craze of smallbore and centerfire position shooting. No longer were communities across America hosting German-origin Schuetzen offhand clubs and matches - laying on one's belly and trying to obliterate the 10-ring of 50 and 100 yard smallbore targets replaced them. (More's the pity.) The Savage, Winchester, Stevens .22 target rifle offerings strived to meet that demand.

I've often heard that the 1919 was considered to be an entry-level gun, that serious competitors shied away from it. Not that it didn't possess inherent accuracy, it was that their sights kind of sucked, triggers weren't great, and they were too light. The Winchester 52 took the lead and kept it for a couple decades. Speaking as someone who's owned and shot with all of them that I mentioned I gotta concur with that sentiment. (Even the wonderful Martini's and Walnut Hill's couldn't keep up - they were underlever single shots that were scary accurate but handicapped by their levers when used in prone position, and the slow rates of fire were a hindrance in rapid fire matches. That said, the only one's of the bunch I've kept are a couple Martini's and a dandy Stevens Walnut Hill.)

Ty gnoahhh.

Until Gene gets here. There were 3 versions, maybe sub versions too. The 1919 NRA Match Rifle. Looks like a 1903A3. Has a cheap stamped peep sight. The 1923 has a nicer peep, still looks like an 03. The 19-33, has a shorter wide, heavy forearm and heavy barrel. Much nicer peep. They were an entry level target rifle that were legal for NRA matches. They are quite accurate.

I have an early varient of the 19. It does feel totally commercial in concept. I consider it something I would have tought way cool when I was a kid and keep it in my collection as such today. A fun gun for banging around at the range. If you want something more on the line of a military trainer then go looking for a M1 or M2 Springfield.

Gary picked up, I think, an Enfield 22 trainer. It was so much fun to plink with, I almost jumped down another Rabbit Hole, Miliary Trainers.

early 1919 had dual firing pins, for finicky rimfire ignition.


and they make for good incentive for the next batch of Savage collectors!

Rick99 is the expert on these, I've found a few new things that I've shared with him, but I learned most of what I know on them from Rick, I think the reason you don't hear more on these from him is that you guy's keep him busy with 99 stuff....

The picture of the three above cover the basic differences. There were some minor variation to the first and last, I think the 1923 version stayed the same throughout it's production run other than a scarce few being found chambered in 22 SHORT only.

The first version, 1919~1923, had a minor change to the rear sight with early one attached with a single screw and later one using two screws of different sizes; the ejection ports originally had square edges and later they beveled them to open it up a little. These also can be found chambered for 22 SHORT.

The last version, 1933 to ????, will be found drilled for two different rear sights, early one were the same as the two previous version using two different size screws and later ones use two screws the same size spaced closer together. The very last version of these was never shown in a Savage catalog that has been seen and the stock is a little different and without a barrel band - this version was also drilled & tapped for a Weaver side attaching stamped sheetmetal scope mount.

There has never been any information I have seen to indicate any of these were ever officially used by the military. It is thought by some that the design was done to mimic the rifles the returning WWI vets were familiar with and the gaining popularity of bolt actions at the time.

Yeah, in 1919 the Army didn't give hoot about breaking in newbies with .22's. "Man up, and and don't crowd the stock on that Springfield, son. Good. Here's another clip, try again. Don't mind that sore shoulder, I got plenty more stuff for you to worry about kid." Finally in the early 20's somebody got the idea that maybe .22's really would be a good way to introduce city slickers to the world of military marksmanship. Their answer, as Jeff said this morning, was the Springfield M1922, then M1922 M1, and finally the M2. They didn't employ civilian commercially made .22's because they made their own, but that changed in the mid-late 30's when they wised up and realized they could simply buy .22's from Winchester, Stevens, and Remington for a lot cheaper than they could make them. The M1919 Savage never entered into the equation.

Re: the 1919 dual firing pin. There's two schools of thought as to why, I think. First is poorly distributed priming compound in the folded heads of 100 year ago .22 cases and that the rims had to be struck simultaneously in two spots to be assured of hitting a spot with priming compound in it. Maybe, but I'm not sold on that - .22 cases were primed then as they are now, by spinning them at high RPM's and having the wet compound spread into the rims by centrifugal force. My personal theory as to why is so they could get reliable ignition simply by doubling the effort. Reason is that one of the cornerstones of .22 accuracy is resoundingly high impact force by the firing pin. Point of fact: better accuracy is attained by a deep hard impact rather than a wimpy impact. For a dual firing pin to work its two impacts must be of equal nature - in depth and force. I seriously doubt that Savage spent the man hours to painstakingly guarantee that both firing pin points were precisely the the same length/depth. On top of that the force instilled by the spring was spread out over two surfaces not one thus limiting the impact. To have increased the spring pressure to where both impacts were truly righteous would've meant stronger mainsprings with attendant problems back from there through the sear and trigger further mitigating the quest for a sweet trigger pull for precision work. No, they saw the error in their ways and subsequently reverted to single point firing pins, and life was good with an increase in repeatable accuracy. One instance where demonstrably "less is more" with one good whack being better than two so-so whacks.

Sometimes Savage was their own worst enemy.

I've proved that theory myself with a couple Ballard single shot target rifles. Indifferent/spotty accuracy with light/shallow firing pin strikes. Painstaking crafting of new firing pins with longer points yielded much deeper indentations and much improved accuracy on the target.

The double firing pin was just two points on a single part, not two separate pieces, so it was easy to get the length correct. It was not a new thing, the Henry's and Winchester 1866's had double firing pins.

The ones on the 1919 NRA's are slightly narrower than most single firing pins on 22's from that time, so the total surface area hit by both was not that much more. I've ran into a number of early 22's that have had the nose of the firing pins narrowed so they will reliably dent modern brass cased cartridges, back then the cases were almost always copper and easier to dent, so the wider the firing pin the more reliable the ignition and the less likely to pierce the softer case. Stronger brass cases were required for Hi-Speed loadings which came into use about 1930, some catalogs from that time state that 'regular' cartridges were still copper cased, eventually the term 'regular' got dropped as Hi-Speed became the norm and we now use 'standard velocity'. Now every thing has brass cases. One of the changes to the Savage Model 29 for Hi-Speed cartriges was to narrow the firing pin to about half what it was.

I shot the gun today. It shot okay, about an inch at 25yds. I wondered how there were 2 hit marks on the empty casings!! I never heard of a dbl firing pin. And Gene is correct most shells had to be fired twice for them to go off

Gene, back around the time of John Wrights sales, I thought I saw one of the variants in 22 Hornet. Was there ever one of those critters?

A 19H from about 10years ago - gunauction/12552575

One of the 1919's I owned, that I inherited from my Dad, imprinted the rim case distinctly differently for the two firing pin strikes - one nice and "normal" looking (but not terribly deep), the other maybe half as deep or so. I remember discussing that trait with him and it was that phenomenon that initially set me to researching the effect of firing pin strikes on .22 rims. The gun was in minty condition and The Old Man had owned it a helluva long time so I gotta assume it was a factory defect, but who knows. He rarely shot it because he didn't like it much, don't really know why, and afterwards I shot it some but could never get it to shoot as well as I'd hoped. I kept it for a while for nostalgic reasons but when I saw the folly in that it went down the road.

Joe, yes the 1933 barrel band version was made in Hornet.

BLR358WIN, I think about the only thing not covered is the serial number location. The early rifles have the serial stamped on the very back edge of the receiver where the bolt goes in. Serial started at 1000 in 1919 and stopped before 25000 which was the start of the next version in 1924. Serial was located by the bolt handle on later versions.

Ty Rick, 4 digit in very back of reciever

Best I can piece together on serials, Savage produced around 10,000 the first year of production.

Don't know how accurate or complete this is. ??

Savage NRA

When I lived in Hanover, NH, from 1986 thru 1990, I shot in a 50' winter league in the basement of the Carter Community Building in Lebanon, NH. I usually shot a Remington 37, #099xx, with the Remington receiver sight and a Redfield Olympic front sight, and an early Savage 1919 with a Lyman #57? receiver sight and a Lyman #17 front sight. I did better with the Remington, but didn't do too bad with the Savage despite the trigger.