Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 300 Savage for elk

The 300 Savage was killing Elk long before the Magnum craze

Yes an still going to do it along with ever is pointed at also one great cartiage

I had an uncle that used the Savage mod. 99EG on elk, deer, bear and even a couple of moose...He swore by it and I know for a fact it worked..All he ever used was the 180 gr. Corelokts as best I can remember and I have saw him kill a lot of elk with it when I was a kid growing up. My dad said that was his first and only big game rifle, and dad thought it was a too big and preferred the 250-3000.

Wow, this is "heaps of nostalgia time" for me.

When I was a young boy we had 1 center fire rifle in the Zihn home. My dad's M99 Savage in 300 Savage cal. I grew up with that rifle in the corner of the big closet in our tiny house in the hills. Dad bought 150 grain ammo for the rifle and he and my mom killed deer with it since before I was old enough to understand where the hanging deer came from. I remember asking them about the dead deer when I was about kindergarten age, or maybe a bit before.

My dad's 1/2 brother Walt had a Mauser in 30-06. Dad's rifle was bought from a gunsmith in Arizona right after WW2 and before he met my mom. Walt had land in Utah and Nevada and Walt's full brother had some in Montana and another chunk in Idaho. Before I was out of grade school I was going with Dad on deer hunts in Nevada and elk and deer hunts in Utah and Montana.

I shot my 1st elk with that 300 Savage when I was about 8-9 years old in Utah with my dad's permission. I guess that was not legal, but I doubt anyone would have cared back then around 1964 or 65. I shot it and it ran a bit then stopped and Walt shot it again. He gutted it out with a friend he and my dad worked with. He hit it through the neck and cut the main arteries but didn't hit any bones , and my hit was in the chest through both lungs. I can't say if I killed that bull of if Walt did, because both were good hits. But I did eat back strap cooked on cedar fire that night. It was a big step forward for me in my boyhood and I had the men of the camp all telling me that I'd done a good job.

I didn't like the 300 Savage in those days because it was REALLY light and had a crescent steel butt on it and a super thin barrel and I thought it kicked like hell. I was only a kid and weighed about 70 pounds. At a Riverton Wyoming gunshow a while back I met the man that wrote the new book on the M1899s and I told him about the rifle. He tells me it was probably not a 300 Savage when it was made because the things I remember so clearly on it were not features made on the 300s, according to him. The thing that sticks in my mind is Dad saying he got the rifle from an Arizona gunsmith. I think it may be that rifle was made as a 30-30 or maybe a 303 and was converted to 300 by the gunsmith. The rifle had a short barrel (I think about 20 inches) and a very slender forend and slim barrel with a dog-knot where the rear sight was. It has that horrid dished steel butt plate that hurt my shoulder and the stock would hit my cheek too. It also seemed long even for my Dad who was 5' 10" tall. It had no pistol grip. I am unsure of it's history. It was used in 1946 when Dad got it just a few months after he was discharged from his Navy service in WW2.

Dad got a box of 180 grain ammo in Eureka or Ely Nevada for that hunt. I remember thinking how I would hate it, because the larger bullet would kick harder then the 150 grain bullets he usually bought, but at the time of the shot I didn't even notice it. Walt gutted out the bull and gave me the bullet which I kept for years. I think I still have it in a box at my Mothers home in Nevada. It was a Remington cartridge as I recall. The bull was a 5X5 and full grown and it went about 65 yards before it stopped and Walt shot it again. It went about 10 more yards after Walt's shot, and then fell. The 300 Savage bullet was against the skin on the other side just in front of the left shoulder. Walt's bullet exited, and the blood trail looked was like a hose was letting it out. I can say with 100% certainty the old 300 is OK for elk if you shoot well. If Walt's bullet was the one that brought the bull down or if it was mine, I can't know for sure, but I am 100% sure the bull would not have gone very much farther if Walt had not fired at all.

I have come full circle and I now own two 300 Savage rifles.

I now have a 1951 made M99 with a 24" barrel and everything standard. It weights about 8-1/4 pounds. The stock was broken when I got it, so I made a new butt stock. The spring in the cartridge stop was missing too so I got a new one of them and installed it. It had a bent rear sight so I took it off, threw it away and installed a slot blank, and then put on a Williams peep sight. It shoots very well with my best loads going into barely over 1" at 100 yards.

Just about 1 month ago I got a Remington M81, also in 300 Savage. I killed 2 white tail deer with it only a 8 days ago. It is not as accurate as my Savage, but I can keep 5 rounds at about 2" or 2.5" at 100 yards. I have shot tighter a few times, but on demand I can do 2.5" with this gun.

In both my 99 and my 81 the 180 grain loads I have tried are less accurate then the 140, 150 and 165 grain loads, so far at least. The best so far is as "Plane Vanilla" as you can get. 150 grain Remington Core-Lokt in reformed and trimmed 7.62 NATO brass, CCI primer and 40 grains grain or 4064 in the Savage 99 and 39.5 in the Remington 81.

Funny, ----- I hated my Dad's 99, but after I was about 30 years old I found myself wanting to find one and buy it. I was 63 years old before I did, and one year later I got the 81. Maybe the younger men here can't yet understand, but hunting with the old 300s is SO MUCH more fun then using the scoped super accurate rifles in the safe. It is like being young again. In this season I killed antelope with the old Savage and deer with the old Remington. Who knows, I may even use it to fill my last tag for 2019, my cow elk. If I do I'll post it here.

A while back someone posted pictures of the pages of a camp game log book, 1940's or 1950's maybe. There were a number of entries showing large elk taken by hunters using the 300 Savage.

Killed my first two cows with a 300 Sav. 150gr Interlocks.

My uncle is a still hunting machine. He is deadly with his old 300 Savage. Handloaded 150gr Interlocks I believe is what he uses too. He kills an elk every year he's drawn with that combo, which is often. While the cartridge is capable, his ability as a hunter and good marksman should not be understated.

Seems a viable option to build a nice woods type deer rifle.

Been thinking of building a little 20-21" barreled treestand gun and I can see where the 300 Savage would make the cut.

Rename it the 300 CreedBro and the elks will drop waaaaay out there!

Neighbor has a barn wall of bulls, 721 rem 300 savage..

When I first came to this valley, lots of 99's in .300 savage were in use... Back then, most of the elk were killed in timber or across an open park.. Not long range stuff.. It worked well.. Most guys shot Remington ammo.

I have owned several model 99's.. Many of my uncles used them for their deer hunting, but my grandfather used a model 54 .30-06.. I still use it some... I never could warm up to the drop in the 99 stock, and the safety.. I did shoot deer and antelope with them.. I liked the caliber so, when I had an extra short action 700 I had it barreled with a .300 Savage barrel.. It shoots fine.. I never spent much time reloading for it.. But it always shoots ok.. I have about 8 boxes of factory stuff... I plan on taking it on this seasons whitetail hunt probably next week.. Cool caliber ..

szihn that's a cool story I like that kind of write up thanks

Agree 44mc. Good stuff szihn. Don't have a 300 Savage, but do have a 99C .308 Win. It wouldn't be a bad choice for elk hunting.

I moved to Utah, in 1990. Cruising the used gun racks in every big pawn shop or Gun shop, there were at least 3-4 Mod 99s in 300 Savage. I "may have seen" 3 250-3000s in that time and a few .303 Savages with bad bores. There were also sporterized Mod 1917 Enfields and a handful of 1903s. Many Mod 98s in 8x57 then too. So, this was either from younger guy selling/trading off Grandpas saddle rifle or trading "up" to more modern rifles/calibers. Point being, tons of mule deer/elk killed in Utah with the 300 Savage, ha.

Gringo Loco, I have killed several elk with a 308 and so has my wife. I have probably seen about 20-25 killed with them in addition to those I am my wife killed. The 308 is just fine for elk . Don't even hesitate to take you old 99 out after them if it suits you. Use any good bullet that will hold together well and you'll do just fine.

About 25 or so years ago and buddy and I went on an elk hunt up on the Olympic Peninsula just out of a little town called Humptulips. One of the group we were hunting with was an 80 year old retired judge whose rifle was a very cherry Savage 99 in .300 Savage. IIRC, he was using 180 gr. bullets. I remember him as my buddy and I had our .44 mag. handguns with us and the old boy hated handguns of any sort with a purple passion. Rained like hell opening morning and the elk headed for the deepest darkest jackpots they could find. Needless to say we saw nothing during the whole hunt.
I've never hunted with a .300 Sav. but I do have a Ruger M77 RSI in .308. That rifle with it's 18.5" barrel will only shoot one load, the 165 gr. Speer Hot Core at 2550 FPS. Looks to me like it's a .308 that thinks it's a .300 Savage. FWIW, change the bullet to anything other than that Speer bullet and accuracy goes back to straight to hell. I have three of those rifles, don't ask, but they all shoot the Speer bullet just fine and lousy with anything else. Guess that's why I got into them so cheaply. Killed a lot of deer with them and reading here about the .300 Sav. has me thinking. All but one of my shots elk hunting on a ranch in New Mexico have been, except for one under 250 yards. Maybe I should take it out for an elk. Wouldn't be any different than if it was the .300 Savage considering how it shoots regarding velocity. I'll think about it.
Paul B.

I wouldn’t give up an elk for a 300 savage!

I'd be tempted to load it with the Barnes 130 and get after it.

Back in 1959 at age 19, I was trying to put myself through college in Missouri and ran out of money. I headed to my sister's in a little California mountain town in Plumas County (Quincy) and got hired on with the USFS as engineering tech on the Plumas National Forest. When deer season came around a Forest Service buddy asked me to go deer hunting with him. I borrowed a rifle from a offered by my sister's neighbor; an old octagon barreled 1894 32 Winchester. My forest service buddy carried his family's deer/elk rifle the Savage 99 in 300 Savage. I remember the details vividly; it was my first time deer hunting. Most of my hunting in my home state of Iowa had been for squirrels, rabbits, pheasant, quail and duck I didn't score on that first deer hunt, but my buddy dropped a nice 6 point (3 point western count). Later in 1968, when I was looking to buy new deer rifle, I read about the 308 Winchester cartridge being a nice mild round a little hotter that the 300 Savage and settled on that in a first year production Ruger 77 (tang safety model). That decision was influenced greatly by the stories I had heard from my buddy's family members about their deer hunts; and elk hunts in Idaho with the old 300 Savage. I have never regretted buying my Ruger 77 308 Win rifle; but at the time would probably of been equally happy with a Savage 99 in 300 Savage.

CJ

I think the .300 Savage is adequate for elk at close range. I prefer a more robust cartridge like the .35 Whelen or .300 Weatherby for anchoring elk in place. Happy Trails

722 😀