Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Another Odd Savage 1895 thread

This one I have with me was made in 1896, and sat at the warehouse for many months before being shipped out. Has the JM stamp. Numbers match.

What’s odd about it? It’s in 30-30, and not in 303 Savage.

Fugg told me once years back that he has some squirreled away documentation saying that one or two 1895s snuck out of the factory in 30-30. Does anyone else here read or hear anything about this?

I like to think that I may own the first Savage rifle chambered in a Winchester caliber.

If that no kidding could be 100% proven, I would seriously ask Savage if they would possibly want it back with them.

The letter I got on it states that it remained at the factory for a longer than normal time and it’s the only 1895 they see without a “303 Savage” entry in the record. It’s just blank. Not a whole lot to go on but something.

I also like to think that a few “Marlin” employees were trying out the new 30-30 “Winchester” in the new “Savage” 1895.

Shoots 30-30 rounds just fine.

God bless,
RAS

Here's what I can tell you.

No 1895 ledger entries specify a cartridge, so not sure what anybody could mean by "it's the only 1895 they see without a "303 Savage" entry".
There have been a few copies of pages given out by Roe and Callahan, and were published when the rifles went on sale.
As well, several collectors have shown me pages they got from Roe and Callahan for help in researching my book. I don't have permission to publish them. Paul Allen had a couple pages at a Savage Fest in Wisconsin, also.
None showed a cartridge designation on 1895 entries..

1895 ledgers listed:
* Serial Number
* Notes consisting of special order features or if it's Military or Carbine
* R / O / HO (barrel shape)
* Accepted from factory date
* Ship date
* Person/company shipped to

Here's an 1895 I just lettered. Cody lists everything on the letter that's in the ledger, and don't list anything that's not in the ledger. As you can see, no cartridge designation. And it hung around for 19 months before being shipped.




Even the early 1899 ledgers don't specify 303 Savage cartridge on the listing - because they only catalogued/sold them in one cartridge. For 303 Savage they didn't record the cartridge up thru 1906'ish, they only recorded other cartridges. No cartridge entry means it was 303 Savage. I still get searches/letters back from Cody on early 1899's which don't list a cartridge because it's not listed in the ledger.

The only other cartridge mentioned in the 1895/1897 catalogs is the 30 Cal U.S. Government - in the 1895 catalog only. That would be the 30-40 Krag, not the brand new 30 WCF.

After saying all of that.. obviously I can't prove your rifle wasn't made at the factory in 30 WCF. Does the barrel stamp say 303 CAL, or 30 CAL?

The 303 Savage and 30 WCF 1899's were bored identically, from what all of our sources say. So it would have been trivial to just change the chambering.

When did Marlin first chamber a Marlin rifle in 30 WCF?

Oh.. and a last note:

I wouldn't give any rifle back to Savage. At MOST they'll put it in their lobby for display, where basically nobody will ever see it and they'll likely mislabel it.

Do a chamber cast, then find out what caliber it is . Then examine the barrel for other 30 30 evidence versus. 303 savage. Try a 303 savage in the chamber, I belive they are bigger and the bolt won't close in a 30 30 chamber. Otherwise the 303 savage may have been reamed out to a 30-30.

Bring that rifle, documentation & cast along to Savage Fest 2024 in Wyoming.
We'll have a separate break out session just for this rifle.
That'll be fun.

Calhoun,

To answer your questions.

Barrel says what every other 1895 says. It’s marked 303. No other stamping is on there that I can see. It’s a round barrel, sporting rifle. Not octagon or 26 inches.

I actually got “two” letters on this rifle. The first one was received at a time when Savage first took over the letters. I would say the 2016 timeframe. Between the typos and my own personal questions, they redid the letter. Talking to the lady on the phone who ran or at least assisted in this letter, she conveyed to me what I already explained in my post.

Again, I am just summarizing/repeating what they wrote to me. Maybe there were more notes on the gun or not in the ledger. I don’t know.

As far as the 100% full story, only God knows. So 100% certainty won’t be achieved sans Savage won’t be getting it. Lol.

——-

Malcolm,

When I got the rifle and tried putting in a 303 shell, it obviously didn’t fit. I did a full chamber cast, and that’s how I found out it being a 30-30. Again, it cycles and shoots 30-30 rounds all day long with no problem at all.

Two members of this Savage forum actually shot this rifle as well. Worked great for them as well.

Can’t ream out a 303 to a 30-30 as you stated. This rifle is cool. And in my head, it’s the first Savage in a Winchester round.

The main driver of this post was Fugg mentioning to me that he did have or seen some documentation saying that one or two were made in 30-30. Is this one of those rifles? Maybe he can opine? I don’t know for certainty as the case for a lot of early Savages. But I do know that this rifles cycles and fires 30-30 perfectly. And it’s a Savage 1895, and that is pretty damn cool.

RAS

There was another 1895 discussed sometime back that also was chambered to take '30-30' (same one?). I believe it was still marked as 'CAL .303' on the barrel. I could not find the thread with that.

From the few letters I have seen on 1895's it is not uncommon for them to have sat in the warehouse for a time, the letter Rory posted shows that one was there well over a year. I have information on 6238 - accepted April 21, 1896 and shipped March 24, 1898; another, 4543 - accepted April 22, 1897, Shipped: January 29, 1898.

One more thing.

The 30-30 was designed in 1894, and was in production in 1895 by Winchester. In the Marlin factory, they were producing some Marlins in 30-30 in 1896. Sounds funny, but 30-30 was the new hip round. Maybe Arthur and/or Marlin wanted to see how the new Savage 1895 would work with a 30-30? Not proven as already mentioned but certainly plausible in my mind.

And since we are going there, I could see ole Arthur out in the yard putting a few 30-30 rounds out with this rifle with some Marlin guys standing around watching. And then Arthur saying, “Nah, let’s keep the 303 and screw Winchester and their silly cartridge.”

Gene,

Yes, same one.

I got this rifle in Birch Run, MI from a man from Rose City, MI.

He was a collector/dealer and had zero idea it was chambered in 30-30 for the years he owned it. Never shot it.


Pics from 2017.

303, no worky



30-30 on left, cast from gun in center and 303 Savage on right.

If you talked with a lady who did letters, I'm thinking that was Effie and she was new to the ledgers. If she'd been doing rifles from 1906 and later, she'd have seen '303' entries. She didn't do them long, and is retired now.

with Savage never say never. I like the supposition that Arthur tried the 30-30 and said "NO". He and Winchester were at odds with each other. Like Winchester getting the ammo manufacturers to stop making 303 ammo.

I can see the "Savage powers that be" agreeing to chamber one in .30-30 for a good customer. After all, a sale is a sale especially for a new company struggling to get up and running. I can also see them not wanting to divulge that they did it, and simply ran the barrel through the roll stamper that included ".303 Sav" in the lettering. Also, roll stamp dies are expensive to make, then as now as I know personally, and they would've balked at a separate new stamp just to mark one rifle barrel in a caliber that they hope to God never have to make again.

Don't think about this cartridge choice with a 21st century brain, think about it from the viewpoint of a rifle loony alive and kicking in 1895. Winchester just announced a jim-dandy "high velocity" .30 cartridge with all the fanfare of a circus coming to town. Winchester is King of the Hill in the rifle world and can do no wrong - ergo, the new cartridge has gotta be wonderful. He's intrigued by the new Savage rifle but leery of its claims to contain another new Wonder Cartridge (and how could it be as Wonderful as the new Winchester cartridge), and figures his best bet is to combine the two and beat on Savage to accommodate him.

An analogy would be if today a new upstart rifle maker appears out of nowhere offering it only in their own, equally new, 6.5mm Wonder Cartridge that's similar to but not quite exactly like the 6.5 Creedmoor. Betcha there would be more than one rifle loony who would implore them to build one chambered for the Creedmoor instead.

Yes, I think that was her. I remember talking to her and she was very pleasant and polite. But I also remember thinking, “Is this the best person to be doing this task?”. In her defense, she was very new at that time and was figuring out how to do it.

RAS

Both calibers use .308 bullets. 303 Savage is 0.02 fatter at the base and .30 WCF is about 0.02 longer. So one shouldn’t rechamber a 303 Savage to .30 WCF, but could if you didn’t mind the case splitting. You could install a chamber liner (safety issue?) as the rim diameter is the same so the M1895/1899 extractor should work.
So .30WCF won’t go in an unmodified 303 chamber, but reaming out a 303 chamber would allow it to accept a .30 WCF (it just might not be safe to shoot), good idea to check the case body diameter on that chamber cast very carefully before pulling the trigger,
That said, find it very hard to believe that a major arms manufacturer would allow a barrel stamped 303 Savage that was actually chambered for the .30WCF out of the factory.

What is the serial number?

Wondering if early or late model 1895 production.
~5000 - 8000 = early prod.
~5000 - 3000 = late prod.

maybe the barrel got stamped before they did the chamber. Looking forward to the answer to Rick's question as to early or late production.

And they still let it out of the factory with a 303 barrel stamp?

Unless it was built somewhere else it looks like they did.