Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage 99 in WW 2

Just watched an episode of APOCALYPSE : THE SECOND WORLD WAR. In episode 2 season 1, a British officer is instructing English women how to load a rifle. That rifle appears to be a Savage 99.

Yeah, a schitload of civilian arms were donated by Americans to prop up the virtually weaponless Home Guard. The vast bulk of them never made it back to the States after the War was over. Thank God the Home Guard was never called to task in the event of a German invasion - it would've been a slaughter, the presence of a handful of 99's notwithstanding.

99 production continued throughout WW2 but on a more limited basis.
I own a 1941 manufactured Eg in 300sav.

Yep, if I remember my history books it was right after a pile of small arms were left on the beaches of Dunkirk.

Does anyone on this forum own a 99 that was made between 1942 and late 1945? Or the period we really were engaged in combat against the Axis powers.

I have one that Callahan lettered as mid-1945, which would be during the fighting in the Pacific with Japan.

There were also a lot of 99's in 1942 - but remember the only logged dates from that time was ship date. Not manufacture date. So some of those would be inventory shipped out later. Probably not most of them tho, Savage was sending letters in 1941 saying they'd ship orders as soon as they had them - meaning they didn't have 15,000 guns in inventory. So 1942 saw a good number produced, but shortages and lack of manpower hadn't happened yet due to war.

1943/1944 saw very little production each year according to sales data. 1944 almost nothing for sales, but I think they shipped out a couple thousand 99's to fulfill pre-existing orders from 1943. And we've seen 99's in these serial number ranges, but no ledgers exist as far as we know.

Production in 1945 seems to have restarted in spring, probably right at the time Germany surrendered. The gov't started cancelling some of it's contracts for weapons at that time, so they hurried to start producing civilian arms. And they had a ton of people available.

The Jan. 1945 pricelist listed only the 99EG, 99R and 99RS (same as 1942). Funny thing is that I've seen several (half a dozen?) perfectly correct 99T's in that early 1945 serial number range. Not 99RT's, these are 99T's with correct checkering. I've got one with either upgraded or altered checkering. Then the 99T's stop. And we see 99RT's show up a couple months later.

And now you know the rest of the story, as far as we know it today.

I had a conversation with a man that hunted with my father before I was old enough to hunt and I remember him telling me that the ability to buy any hunting rifle during the war was nearly nonexistent, at least where he lived. Even used rifles were held onto tightly and in short supply. He finally bought a Savage model 40 in 30-30 from a neighbor widow, when a neighbor passed. He was not a fan of that rifle, but he said it was the only rifle he could find that was for sale during the whole war. When the war ended, and hunting rifle production started up again, he promptly bought a Remington Model 81 in 300 Savage that he hunted with until the day he died sometime in the early 2000's.

Here are the WW2 99 production numbers I have from Royals book.

1941 11580
1942 11210
1943 1850
1944 2660
1945 2000

99 production from ‘43-‘45 was very limited indeed.

In 1940 savage started producing Tommy guns for the auto ordinance company. By ‘45 around 1.5 million Thompson sub machine guns were produced at Utica NY. In 1940 savage built around 330 000 total 30 and 50 cal aircraft machine guns for the US government.
In 1941 savage contracted with the British to produce the Lee Enfield rifle. Over a million Enfield rifles were produced after savage purchased the Westinghouse factory in Chicopee Falls. This production was under the Stevens management.

In January 1997, long before I knew that the records were not available for the serial number range, I wrote to JTC to letter #3996xx, a checkered EG in .303 which has a 24" barrel instead of the cataloged 22" barrel. (It turns out it is a takedown barrel.) (Squeeler has, or had, an identical rifle, #3998xx.)

JTC was not able to find a record of my rifle, but here are some quotes from his letter:

Speaking about WW II - "Contrary to what many people say there were guns built and I feel that they were from components already produced."

He did find some records - ".... S/N 399540 ... an EG in caliber .300 Savage in 1942. Also located were S/N 399700 and 399708, shown to be Model 99-H in .303 Savage. Both of these were also in 1942. The natural assumption then is that your Model 99 was built during 1942 also."

"I have no concrete explanation of why your Model 99 has a 24" barrel instead of 22". I feel that any guns produced during this time were assembled with anything that was available on the manufacturing floor. This certainly allowed a large latitude of non standard specs."

All barrels for 99's in the 1942 catalog are 24", for both the 250-3000 and 300 Savage (only two cartridges shown). We do see a couple 99's in other cartridges chambered (to fulfill existing orders probably), and they often have 24" barrels also). We don't see 22" barrels again until the 99T's and some 99RT's in 1945, and then they stop until the 99F appears in 1955.

The 99H wasn't catalogued in 1942 nor the 303 Savage, so they were probably late finished rifles using up stocks to fulfill existing orders. I'd think 399540 would most likely be an early 1941 rifle.

But like Callahan, anybody trying to figure out serial number ranges for 1938 and later is at best making educated guesses.

Notice to Export Distributors, from Savage Arms Corporation, July 8th 1941.

"SAVAGE - FOX: Further orders cannot be accepted for the following:-
Model 99 High Power Rifles
Model 420 and 430 over and Under Shotguns
Models 3, 3S, 4, 4S, 5 and 5S - Caliber .22 Rifles
Model B Fox Shotgun"


But that was just for export, apparently. The Nov. 10, 1941 Schedule of Prices (In accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 2, of the Savage Sporting Arms Fair Trade Agreement, which refers to amendments to said Agreement ), 99's were still available.

99-EG minimum wholesale $46.30, minimum retail $61.75
99-G minimum wholesale $53.95, minimum retail $71.90
99-R minimum wholesale $52.75, minimum retail $70.00
99-RS minimum wholesale $63.10, minimum retail $83.95

Those prices in November had jumped 20% from the distributor price list in March, 1941.

I have a binder full of 1941 price lists, distributor prices lists, Canadian price lists, notices to sellers, etc. Picked it up off an auction a while back.

I think I read once that last batch of pre war Colt SAAs were sent to England when they were screaming for weapons.
A lesson to the idiocy of gun control.

I have a 1943 250-3000 with a Griffin & Howe mount and Unertl Condor scope. It has EG stamped on the front of the receiver, but has a 99T forearm. Always wondered if the forearem could be orignial to the rilfle given when it was produced.

We have 2 what we call wartime Eg’s in our collection one being a 1945 30-30 and the other being a 1943 303 the 303eg was our hardest Eg’s to find as Kurt was wanting a collector grade 303 cut checkered EG so that is one that he is quite proud of!!

That is a cool gun.

I bet the forearm is original to the gun.

No EG forearms in the bin that day being the middle of the war. Using up the "old T" forearms....

Any serial number on that T forearm?

Cool😎

361763

That's interesting.. If only guns could talk!

Yeah, the war was a pretty desperate fight in1943 and I don't think worrying about a correct forearm was high on anybody's list of priorities.