Most of the model C's and F's that I have looked at will have the frame code marked on the butt stock and plate but rarely any marks on the fore stock. A few that I have seen have no marks on the buttstock or perhaps only a single digit #. Is this common, or evidence of a changed out stock?

I don't know if this is any help but from what I understand later production 99s (from about circa-1960s on) didn't have the stocks serial numbered to the gun. Beyond that, any numbers, letters or codes found on stocks are a mystery to me.

Savage stopped using the rifle's serial number on the buttstock, buttplate and forearm about 1950 and replaced it with an assembly code that was stamped on the right side of the lower tang. This part of the tang is covered by the buttstock. The examples I've looked at had it on all three pieces but this observation may be limited to 1950's and early 1960's rifles so maybe the later rifles didn't have all the parts numbered. The best I can remember these codes contain both numbers and letters and consist of 3 to 5 digits. I'm not home so I can't check any of my late rifles. David

Did JTC ever offer any insight into just what the he!! those codes meant? Did the stocks usually match the rifles tang codes? It seems like the ones I've bothered to check were different on the tang and the wood but I don't remember checking many.

I don't remember talking much about the code letters on later rifles and don't think JTC was ever asked.

I think the code stamps came with the move to the Stevens plant in Chicopee. The Model 29's switched from a serial number to a code stamp and I don't think GeneB has found any patterning in it.

Thanks Rick.

The assembly code stamps replaced the ser. # markings and they should match, butt, plate, (even scratched in plastic) lower frame tang, and forend . "sometimes" the forend will be short one "digit". Sometimes white crayon/paint stick on butt and plastic plates

The date codes, you stupid SOB.

Really? Hmm. Love it when experts educate us ignoramuses.

The date codes were on the barrels of 22's and on the lever boss of 99's - I also think these other codes to be assembly codes, and maybe inspectors codes, and they do not seem to have anything to do with a manufacture date. On the Chicopee made 22 pumps these 'codes' replaced the serial numbers on the front of the receiver and the same codes will be found on the butt stock - that suggests at least one use of this coding system was to keep the fitted parts together - forearms on the 22's are not marked, but they did not require fitting to a specific gun. These codes can consist of a combination of letter's number's and/or symbols with no reasoning for any of them that I can see - some are simple and some are complex, the number of different stamps used also does not seem to have a pattern. I have never seen a comparison of these to anything on a 99 from the same time period so I don't know if there is anything common to both.

Since all this seems to have occurred after the move to the Stevens plants I will mention something Stevens had been doing, starting about 1920, after their purchase by Savage, they used inspection stamps on the barrel & receiver of their guns - I believe each inspector was issued a unique stamp, the stamps used change over time with old ones disappearing as new ones appear and they can be used to roughly date some guns. These stamps were either a letter, a number (one or two digit), or a symbol in a circle - sound similar to the 'code' stamps? - it might be that departments or individual craftsmen were issued a unique stamp, or set of stamps, to mark the parts as they finished them to keep the sets together. I have not yet tried to record these stamps to see if I can find any pattern to them.

On one of my EG's in the s/n 516,000 range has all the serial numbers plus the letter codes in white chalk or white grease pencil on the buttstock ,forearm and the code letters stamped on the tang under the stock. Don

Really, I'm just kicking the old son of a BITCH in the nuts. We know you are far to obtuse to understand much, so we don't expect much.

You ain't kickin' me. If you read the topic you would have known that we were discussing assembly markings on stocks and butt plates on post '60 guns.

NOT date codes. As an "expert" such as yourself would know, dates of manufacture on post '60 guns was by serial number. So, I guess you knida kicked yourself in the ballz.

Which is no small feat as I'm sure your equipped with a nasty smelling busted ravioli down there rather than nads .