Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 99 rs

Thanks for that correction.

Savage may not have advertised during the war years, but it's sure that they continued to produce and sell some 99's based off of letters we've seen and the serial number gaps. And the folks working at Savage during the war years weren't having a hard time, they were being worked very hard and making quite good money producing 50 cals for aircraft as well as Thompson submachineguns - and probably other weapons (produced a bunch of Enfields, didn't they?). From documents and articles I've found they tripled or more their staff during WWII. I think the 99 production was probably done as extra pay for overtime work after the government contracts were met. Thus Savage couldn't guarantee any given output of 99's because the gov't contracts always came first, but I think they managed to produce several thousand a year.

Drew
I can not really answer that, That's the Way i got here, and That's the way 300Jimmy got it. The Mystery on it it has 2 1/2 different stampings on it.

The other Mystery With all the TR-Rt's EG-R-T is that they all had slightly different Checkering on the F.A. or a T or a different Stamp on the Front of the receiver. Again These Rifle's were never supposedly Catalog!

yeah, I was wondering if the front of the receivers were marked with anything. The other question would be... what is the barrel length on one in 300... if its 24" then it was an R or EG barrel but if it was 22" then it was obviously a T barrel...

few 300's I have seen were 24" as I recall, which makes them an R with a T forearm in my book.

Edit: Or possibly an EG with a T forearm

Same goes for Steve's 30-30, if it were a T, would be a 20" barrel. So......it's really an EG with a T forearm

Regardless of what they are............too bad they didn't actually put them into full scale production.

They are pretty cool guns and I bet they would have sold very well

Drew
At one time you were putting a chart together on 3 point checkering and 2 point Checkering on the R's Prewar.

Question,?
Did you ever get a coralation Between the R and RS Prewar as what had what? as Far as 2point or 3 Point Checkering?
In other words how many RS had Both, if any or How Many R's had both !
Steve

My R/T 30-30 has a 22" barrel.

Cool guns indeed. Mine would be one of the very last I would ever part with.

Rod

Here is one WAG the rifles were put together for a major catalog dealer very similar to the speigal rifles many thought were salesman samples for years. How do the speigal rifles letter?

Steve, I think the 3 point checkering was on both the R's and RS's up to a certain serial number range, where they switched to 2 point checkering. Not sure there's a hard and fast cutover from 3 to 2.

The Speigel rifles letter as being shipped to Speigel... sort of the give away.



Steve,

This is correct except I have not seen any overlap yet. Last three point checkered gun that I have in my records is 355,6XX and the first two point checkered rifle is 356,0xx, so somewhere in that 400 or so rifles is where the switch over would be...except as Rory alludes too... I would suspect some crossover just have not seen it. If you would send me the info you have on your pre-war Rs and RSs, it would greatly help my data.

Thanks

So why were they thought of as salesman samples for so long?

???? No one ever lettered one??

Had to have one that we prior to 371,200 to get an accurate letter. Many of them are later.

good point Rory!

If you ask JC he will say it is a R because Savage only produced EG's and R's at that time. There is no information on the subject in the logs so we will have to go on what we can see.

War time production was around 11,000 99's in 1941, 1942 and 1945. That is a pretty steady run. Production dropped way down to 2000-3000 range in 1943 and 1944. I think they might have stopped production early 1943 and started again late 1944 vs. just slowing production.

The rifles I have info on with early R forearms are all in the 1942 range. The R/T rifles are in the 1944-1945 range.

Savage only printed one catalog during the war years but I have price sheets from 1942, 1945 and 1946 all showing that they were selling EG's and R/RS'. I couldn't find a 1943 or 1944 price sheet to verify but I would guess the R was in there, also.

I think the R/T was either created using blank T forearms that were on hand or it was the original intended relacement design for the early R. I've seen no R's from 1946-1948 with a couple late 1949 then full production in 1950.

The R/T, or what ever you want to call it, was produced. There are too many to be lunch box rifles. I suggest we just accept them for what they are. This is what's great about the Forum. Without the combined input from the group they would still be just odd ball rifles that eveyone was afraid to own because they were not known to be "factory".

Rick, I was thinking of the "using blank T forearms that were on hand" line of thought also, but then started wondering why they had so many T forearms and not any R, G, H, etc. I don't think parts guns works, or we'd see more variation.

And good thought on the price lists, was looking last night and saw the 45/46 price lists and it didn't strike me about the R's. remember that the 45 price list would have come out somewhere between November, 1944 and January, 1945. Gotta have the prices before the year starts.

+ 1 on That Rick.

I.M.O.-We still don't exactly W.T.F. they are? or really know why they exist ,but they do and they come around from time to time, But they are sure Fun to Have and history to speculate and boot on and great information here on the in between years as to why or what of happened.

Rory, I would agree that having that many T forearm blanks left over from 1939 doesn't seem like the correct answer.

It is also interesting that we see 22" 30-30/.303 and 22" and 24" .300's on the R/T but mostly 24" .300's on the EG's.

Did the later Spiegel guns also have the 22" 30-30/303 Savage barrels?