model 99 308

I would assume that Savage has the dimensional drawings. Hopefully the archives would have the drawings going all the way back to the founding of the company, but given the turmoil Savage was in some years ago you never know.

I've never seen factory drawing sets, I just know what I was told by Savage engineers when we talked about the history of the gun as I was putting together the beginnings of an article on the 99 for American Rifleman and I wanted to trace the production history of the gun.

A trip to Savage never materialized because NRA went through one of its "staff convulsions" in early 1994 and laid off something 150 out of 550 employees, including me and over half of the rest of the people in the publications division.

As for my 99, I originally thought the head space was off because I was getting serious indications of case head separations.

I knew I had problems when it would close on both a .300 No Go and Field Gauge. We didn't have a .300 Savage Field gauge, which is what led me to drop in the .308 Go gauge. When it chambered I knew I had problems. Big problems.

A chamber cast confirmed that someone had somehow managed to convert it to .308. I didn't think it was possible, but it was.

My smith said that whoever did the machining on the spindle (which explains why I was also having feed problems with it) did a very good job.

All in all, putting it back to .300 Savage configuration cost me almost as much as buying it in the first place.
 
"That is the only story that sounds right to me."

OK, Gunplummer, I've been more than prosaic with your surly attitude and asides on this matter.

Time to put up or shut up.

You claim I don't know what I'm talking about.

Time for you to lay YOUR knowledge on the table. Not just your suppositions. Provide the basis for your statements, or exit the thread.
 
As I stated before, I re-barreled or repaired dozens of 99's. There was a lot of changes over the years but nothing because of the change to .308 other than lengthening the magazine area. The barrel ring remained the same. The side rails look the same to me. The locking area was already changed to a radius. A section of steel that used to cross from side to side and supported the rear of the rotor stud was milled away. This was replaced by a stamped out piece of metal that hangs from a screw that crosses through the receiver. That is all there is. The only areas that are really containing pressure are from the receiver ring back through the rails to the locking recess. The wild card would be if Savage changed the material that the receiver was made from. When making a bolt or cross screws, I use 4140. I suspect the receiver is 4140 or of that series because of the way it machines. I never had a receiver junky enough to test a piece of it. I did a lot of work on one that was in the 80,000 range and it machined just like one made in the 70's. Unless your .300 SAV was manufactured on a lengthened receiver, I don't see how messing around with the rotor helped to push .308's in the magazine. The section of steel that was milled away on the later models would stop that. The only way I know to rechamber to a smaller cartridge and keep it original looking is to sleeve the chamber. Not out of line for a .300 SAV cartridge really. I would say the guy had his work cut out for him, and if he charged a lot he deserved it. What you have to keep in mind when talking to designers is that they are the ones that designed the screwed up stuff to begin with. Do you think they are going to admit that or give you a bull!#$% story? I strongly suspect that they (Designers) were talking about the 99 model with the removable magazine. I never worked one, but there is one heck of a hole in the bottom of the receiver.
 
I'm trying like hell to find the itemized bill and write up that my gunsmith gave me when he fixed my rifle.

So far, no dice.

"What you have to keep in mind when talking to designers is that they are the ones that designed the screwed up stuff to begin with." :rolleyes:

So you're admitting that Arthur Savage boned the design of the 99 from the outset?

Sigh.
 
Yes. There were quite a few changes made over the years to the original design until the bugs were worked out. Quite a few that had nothing to do with the receiver. Not unusual for guns. There are no "two dozen critical dimensions in the receiver". One would be hard pressed to find two dozen machining operations in the receiver. If you want to actually do something useful, call up one of those designers and find out what type of material they used in the receivers (Get it in writing). There are guys out there getting their 99's color case hardened, and when asked what the material is, they don't know. What kind of a fool would case harden a receiver and not know what it is made of? I saw at least one that was a .308.
 
"One would be hard pressed to find two dozen machining operations in the receiver."

You're joking, right?

According to Savage advertisements/catalogs in the late 1940s, there were over 50 separate machining operations needed to create the receiver for the Model 99.

That's one of the reasons why the 99 was so damned expensive to make, and why, starting in the 1980s, Savage tried desperately to come up with ways to make it less expensive so it wouldn't become extinct.

The last gasp of that was to actually manufacture them in Spain.

Ultimately, the 99's complexity caught up with it, and it could no longer be produced cost effectively.


"There are no "two dozen critical dimensions in the receiver"."

Wrong phrase usage on my part. Let's call them... important dimensional standards derived from the engineering drawings.


"out what type of material they used in the receivers"

Two problems with that.

1. I've not been in touch with either of them since 1993, when I was with American Rifleman. I don't even know if they still work for Savage.

2. You'd need to know when the receiver was made. Receiver steel changed over time. What would work to color case harden one made in the 1890s likely would fail to do the job, or do an inadequate job, for one made in the 1960s.
 
Gunplummer
One would be hard pressed to find two dozen machining operations in the receiver. I
Click to expand...

:D

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The Rutan Model 76 Voyager flew around the world non stop in 1986 and was built with 2 drawings, one was the engine mount. To define that shape would take many drawings. If Boeing documented that plane for production, there would be lots of dimensions, so many stored in a computer, that human brains would never process them.

I am suspicious that the Sav 99 was never really fully documented with drawings. When I tried to drill and tap, I had a hard time finding any parallel surfaces anywhere. See the Aluminium wedges I made in the pic? My guess is that they had some master patterns for casting the receiver, and then belt sanded the complex three dimensional shapes until smooth.
 
Clark

Yes, I have to agree. I have made bolt bodies and extractors and other parts and it is usually a "Hand fit" job because the parts are not that close, especially on the older models. Add that the receiver was probably heat treated after a lot of the machining was done and there is not much to use as a call out. I had a .308 receiver that was badly pitted and I used a surface grinder to take it down. You are right about none of the flats being aligned with each other. I threaded and turned a bar about 6" long and screwed it into the receiver ring. The turned end I put in a vise and put the vise on the grinder magnet. I Indicated each flat and tapped it around to get it parallel with the grinder. The big flats (Forward of where you are holding) were full of high/low spots as if it had been heat treated, polished, and left that way. The small flats (What you are clamping on) did not have the warp spots and may have been cleaned up after heat treating? Anyway you look at it, there was a whole lot of hand work going on.
 
308 Savage 99F

I am trying to figure out what my gun is worth. I have a 308 Savage Model 99F, serial number 1104XXX. There is a stamp on the tang of the receiver forward of the leaver action. The stamp appears to be 25S. I can clearly read the 5S, and I believe the first character is a 2.
 
Gunplummer, you seem to know a lot about the Savage Model 99 rifle. How hard do you think if would be to convert a "carbine" model (the one with the straight grip and lever) to a stock with a "pistol" grip and curved lever? Thanks for any advice.
 
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