Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Superlative Griffin & Howe Savage 99 .250 from 1933

aka mkbenenson:

recently purchased, paid through the schnoz but a gorgeous rifle

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=187782#Post187782

That's some good work on that one. Interesting forearm.. bit longer and it could have been a mannlicher style.

Mark, that is a wonderful rifle. The sighting arrangement, quarter rib and butt stock shape are what does it for me. Now that is the way to scope a 99. I would have ordered it with a shorter forearm if I were the original owner though.

my question is WHY did it change hands so often ?????????
to bulky ,doesn't shoot,poor balance,something going on

Noem, I personally know six of the folks who have owned it since 1961 (counting me) who are, generally speaking, collectors or dealers. I would be surprised if anyone other than perhaps the man for whom it was built in 1933 shot it much if at all. I certainly didn't. Collectors do a lot of trading and of course so too do dealers. Calhoun and Gnoahhh, you have a difference of opinion on correct forend length for this rifle. I rather like it the way it is, reminiscent of the Oberndorf Mauser African models from before WWI.

Mark,

Why do you keep changing your "handle"?

Jeff

Jeff, constant trouble signing on. So I reregistered. Maybe it will stick this time.

Mayhaps the long forearm is to help ward off sabre tooth tigers. If that is the case, it appears not to have worked this time!

aka mkbenenson. Clickety clack of canines clashing.

Mark, glad you were able to pick that rifle up from my good friend Pete. I sure enjoyed the opportunity to take a first hand look at it while he had it. It's a real treasure of a rifle.

Matt

I cant pull up any pictures.

Why is it that if that were done today to that rifle it would surely be bashed? But for it being a G&H after market job, it is praised.

To Quote Michael Petrov in Custom Gunmakers of the 20th Century, "I believe that Griffin & Howe rifles will in the future as in the past be the standard all custom rifles are judged by.".

I second that emotion! G&H was THE name in custom gunnery in the 20's and 30's, and none too dusty today. The only fault one can find with guns they did is in custom features that their well-heeled customers sometimes insisted on that G&H wouldn't have normally done on their own. Quality, custom, tasteful reconfiguring of a Savage 99 surely doesn't attract much (if any) bashing today. Witness what Steve is doing to those rifles he's engraving.