Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors letter from JTC

the letter for my 1895 came from Mr Callahan today
with a notation that it be built "the lightest"
with a date of feb 21 (my birthday) 1896

Strange, never seen anything refered to as lightest before.

Is the stock hollowed out at all?

Very nice, good info there. Lightest is interesting, surprised the SRC wouldn't qualify for that. Thx for sharing.

I think he made a typo, though. Total 1895's should be 5000'ish with the highest serial numbers being 8200 (lowest in the 3000 serial number range). He's shared that info with us before here.

the stock isn't hollowed out anymore than any other 99
but the barrel is much slimmer then the few other 95's I can compare it to. its only 22" and this letter by no means gives any reference to barrel length . its interesting.
I've seen a few photos of other letters John has done on 95's
and 8200 seams to be the standard he's using. ???

Ya, he should reword that somewhat, there wasn't 8200 made, more like 5200 but it should be 8200 is the highest number.

JC's letters are usually pretty generic and I think he uses a basic starting letter and just adds in what he finds in the ledgers on your rifle. Mostly the first paragraph is the stuff he looks up and the rest is just a copy and paste.

I'd like to see the pics of that barrel sometime. Is it stamped JM on the bottom?

it is stamped JM I'll get a picture up tomorrow.

plab

Interesting...

Initially, I thought Mr. Callahan did a LOT of writing for the fee he charges, but Joe's (Mad Dog's) post about using "generic" wording after the initial paragraph helped me to more fully realize how Mr. Callahan "arranges" his letters.

It was something I didn't know... but now I do know, thanx to Joe.


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

That is neat Paul. Looking forward to pictures. Two questions:

1) what is the barrel diameter at muzzle?
2) how's it shoot?

Ron, it's not a bad thing, what more can you say in the letter when all the info that he's given is one line in a ledger as thick as a 2X4, you gotta fill the rest up with something and the variations of the gun is pretty good, might as well save yourself some time and just use the usual.

For most guys lettering a Savage 1899 would be probably a one time deal so JC's letters go a long way, were just spoiled cause we letter 100's of guns a year just from this forum.

Plab, I have production dates on about 150 1895's. The earliest are two produced 2/22/1896 and are in the same serial group as your. I think it is quit feasible that these are some of the very first production rifles.

The 1895 catalog is more of " I think we can" than a "we are" making reference. It only pictures rifles in the three barrel configurations. When I saw the "lightest brl" I thought round 26" but yours is 22". So maybe something we have not seen before.

There is a listing in the back of the catalog for a 15" and 20" carbine. We have seen neither that I know of. All of the carbines that I have production dates on were produced 11/1896-1/1896 and have 22" barrels. Somewhere along the design process someone thought 22" was as short as they wanted to make in order to hold the killing power of the .303 in an acceptable range.

Can't wait to see detailed photos and dimensions.

There are 32" rifles listed at the end of the 1895 catalog as well, don't think we've ever seen anything over 30" have we?

I always wondered if there were any 15" carbines, that maybe they were destroyed in 1934 when the NFA came in.

Marlin would make special order rifles with 32" barrels.I think when savage took over manufacturing in 1899, they only made them up to 30". I got a 1894 Marlin in 38-40 with a 32" barrel and 30" magazine ,it holds a gazillion 38-40 rounds !

...also a lot of Marlin and Winchester trapper models with barrels down to 14"(?).

here's a few more pics and barrel dimensions
at the receiver- .935
" " rear sight .800
7" from the muzzle .675
at the muzzle---- .645

Fug has a photo of A.W. Savage and his son with a couple of trapper barrel length 1895's lying on a table beside them.

Not sure if the rifles in Fug's photos are even 15", almost look like they barely extend past the forearm. Could be though.

Down to 12 inches

This looks like a unique M1895 with that light barrel. How does the crown look - any evidence it may have been shortened? Seems if the buyer wanted it shorter than standard he would have specified - and a fair chance the shorter length would be recorded in the ledger.

well that's just it boltman it doesn't look cut to me. I put a square on the muzzle, and the slight radius I.D. and O.D. all look good.
also you can see slight circular cuts in the dovetail.
no of these really mean much. I wish the letter had been more specific on the barrel.
I've been poking around the internet looking for info on Hartley and Graham, the original consignee. an old catalog from that era would maybe have some more info.

plab

Someone will have to do some number checking for us. I only have 1895-B's. Should check against an 1895-A and a F.