This.Originally Posted by Texas by God
The 99 is so superior to the Winchester and Marling tube fed lever guns it isn't even in the same league.
Don't know what you did wrong, but the rotary mag of the 99 is it's best point, that's human error if there ever was.
And whoever came up with the idea of the clip fed 99 should have been flogged. What an abomination.
I had a 99 in .308 that was a clip feed. It fed but you could feel the bolt bump the rear of the magazine as it rode up over it. Kinda like, klunk and go. Anything but smooth. I didn't keep it long. It was very accurate like all 99's I owned but I had been spoiled by that smooth as glass feeding from a spool feed of the older 99's. Savage made the statement that the clip feed was an attempt to keep the 99 in production as the clip feed was cheaper to produce. It might have been but it was a bad idea. my experience anyway, james
By the time Savage went to the clip feed tang safeties they were in a bit of trouble and cheapened the rifles considerably. Shorter barrels and hardwood stocks over walnut. Had a Savage 99 and did not like it, but not because it did not function. It functioned fine and I made a pretty shot with it. I am a lefty and the lever mounted safety is an abomination and a ridiculous design. I could not reach the thing easily if carrying the rifle through the woods. It also had an inconsistent trigger pull and with the scope mounted was a bit awkward to carry. But as stated I did use it and made a very pretty shot with it threading the bullet through a hole in the brush at about 100 yards. I sold it but would buy a Henry Long Ranger or a BLR if I did not feel the Marlins adequate for my needs.
As a rule the Marlins are smoother than a Winchester and more accurate. They permit decent scope mounting. I do not care for the side loading but only load a couple in the magazine and one in the chamber anyway. As to the clip feed, I use bolt actions more and more that have that feature as I don't like working the lever every time I need to unload the rifle. The last few years I could have done as well with a single shot anyway when deer hunting.
DEP
Never seen a 99 with a "clip" slot although some have magazines.
I wouldn't say Sav 99 is a better gun than JMBs lever designs, they are just different. Any rifles of unknown history as far as repairs or bubba jobs are project guns at the most. Winchester went down the tubes in 1963 because they couldn't compete cost wise with mass produced stamped guns. The 80s saw Marlin, Savage and Ithaca start cutting their quality until they went under. Savage products
were pure junk when they went under. When these companies were still running normal up through the 70s, you didn't hear all this bad PR. It was a different time in history. You couldn't sell junk or you would be out of business quick. The Brand ment something.
OK detachable magazine.
About the time Savage went under Winchester had the 88 and Sako the Finnwolf. None are being made at this time. Those that buy levers seem to want the tubular type 30-30's. Consider how many cartridges Marlin and Winchester have gone through to upgrade lever actions.
Savage is doing well today but they have not redone the 99. Bolt actions have pretty much taken over when they use the other cartridges. Winchester 94's are being made but at a limited production and at a very high price. Market is the market.
DEP
Last edited by northmn; 12-30-2018 at 05:37 PM.
I didn't know there was so little lover for the magazine tube lever!
I shouldn't have been so harsh, I guess I just meant that a tube magazine whilst limited is a whole lot simpler.
Thanks for the replies guys, but I did say after a serious amount of chemicals it is working fine but the first case out!
Last edited by andym79; 12-31-2018 at 02:51 AM.
Given todays action making techniques (i.e machining a huge bar of steel is no longer needed), I am amazed Savage has not revived the 99. Imagine a rotary magazine 99, with the Savage barrel system and the accutrigger marketed in all the 308 family. Variations up the ying-yang in that graceful rifle. I'd sign up for a SRC in 6.5 CM in a heartbeat !
The last gun to leave me will be my BLR pre 81 in 308.
[The Montana Gianni] Front sight and squeeze
As the Amish say" Cooking lasts, kissing don't."
Don't get me wrong, I have Winchesters and Marlins, just don't see how you think a tube magazine is simpler with all those moving parts. A '94 Winchester always seemed like it was disassembling itself and then reassembling itself every time you work the action.
Seriously, a 99 is so far ahead of the others it's hard to believe they were contemporary designs from the same era. Much as I like the Winchesters and Marlins, for serious work, I'd take a 99 every time.
Were your two 99s from the same seller? Don't have a 99 but have shot a few and seen many shot and never heard a complaint from the owners. Reason I ask is if they are from the same source is it possible the previous owner mixed parts and switched followers between rifles.
I have 99s in 32 40 and 300 and they work great. I have 3 marlin 1893s and they work great my miroku 94 is much more complicated and not any better what was John browning thinking? The loading gate on my 94 is the wrong shape and pops out cartridges if you don’t use 2 hands to load it why couldn’t he get that right. That is the only comparatively annoying thing about the 94 I can think of except for all the complication. When you look at the 73 which I also own and the marlin 93 and 94 and the savage 99 it makes me wonder how Winchester was successful with Browning’s contraptions when other designers could have made them better stuff
Have three 99s here. Non have ever had problem. All will out-shoot the best grouping >any stock< lever Win or Marlin can print.
As far as my experience with a 99's stripping down to clean & re-lube. The worst part of the rifle's receiver to monkey with is its rotating cartridge lift. (Tip: If it works leave it alone.) Over tensioning such a tiny coil rotatory spring will break it or likely hamper its loading reliability and assuredly miss-mach its cartridge window counter. As far as I believe. Many older rifles require disassembly experience before or the guidance of a assembly/disassembly Schematics.
Not to slam Win 88s & Brn BLRs but a 99 Savage is old school quality, until they started down the drain. The 88 & BLR are not really in same class. The 88 took a hit in quality after Win went under. The BLR has also slid in quality since Brn started farming them out. Savage 99s went down hill before they folded too. The Win & Marlin tube mag guns suffered the same decline. Marlin held on the longest before they let quality slip. They are all good rifles but aren't really comparable because the designs are all different.
Are 99's easily adaptable to different case designs?
Say it's currently a .308 style case (.243, .308, .358) can it be easily rebarreled to another design case (25-35, 30-30, .32 Winchester, .35-30-30 or .375 Winchester) and still have the rotary magazine work correctly?
Not in my experience. Like the Mannlicher rotary magazines, the spool and feed gates are specific to one cartridge only.
My 99 was a shot-out .30-30, of the old pattern with the adjustable spring tension. I had it relined to .25-35, figuring the cartridges, being more or less the same shape except for caliber, should feed the same. Wrong!
Took several years of scrounging through parts boxes at gun shows before I found a magazine spool that worked. The search was not helped by the fact that Savage changed the spool design later on to one that was much more complicated. At least the original .30-30 feed gate seems to work; didn’t need to replace that, but working the action requires a pretty vigorous lever throw, so the changeover isn’t quite perfect.
The story I heard was that the tooling for the 99 was nearly worn out towards the end, and the few employees who could still make usable gun parts from it were retiring. The bean counters threw the bones, and determined that the future sales of 99s, at the prices needed to amortize the new tooling, would never be enough to make money for the company. Ave Atque Vale!
Too bad, as the action would be perfect for those short, fat cartridges that were all the rage in the ‘90s. They complicated feeding when chambered in full-length bolt actions, and the theoretical accuracy increases over standard cartridges didn’t always seem to pan out, but the length limitation on the Savage mechanism would make them practical.
The original model of the 99 really looks like a rifle to me. Long, skinny barrel, schnabel forend, straight grip and crescent buttplate. But able to use any cartridge, rimmed or rimless, that fits in the magazine, and any bullet style. You can even mount a scope on the thing without heroic measures. Old Arthur Savage had only one gun design in him, but it was a great one, for sure.
As one that really likes the detachable magazine I could see no reason for reviving a rotary magazine. The later Savage using the tang safety and detachable magazine was a better design than the original, it was just the execution that was bad. Also they had to decide to use 20 inch barrels instead of staying with the old stand by 22". But the ideas were good.
Savage has really maintained the market for usable inexpensive bolt actions and really has no reason to dive into reviving a classic rifle that may or may not sell. You get into kind of a mentality like Marlin owners who feel the new "Remlins" are junk ( some were) and the Winchester pre 64 debate. While todays machining techniques far exceed anything the "old timers" could produce many want the old time craftsmanship as they call it. I would welcome a well designed 99. As a lefty I found the old 300 I had to be almost unusable for a walking rifle with its idiotic lever safety. A newer design using a tang safety and detachable magazine would be great.
DEP
northmn, the later Savage 99's all had a sliding safety located on the top of the rear of the receiver. I can't agree that the magazine rifle were better suited for the hunting woods. I will take the rotary feed any day over the magazine feed. 5 rounds should be plenty for any hunting rifle, if it takes more than 2 shots, I would figure I need more range time before going into the woods. You may be right though, that the magazines were bad fitting or lacked proper engineering. I had 2 magazine 99's and the feed on both was very sloppy, with a clunk and crunch feel to them. They fed but left a lot to be desired as to smoothness. I don't know if the 99 would sell these days as it is a plastic spray and pray world of semi-autos. I guess I am just an old dinosaur but I like the days when personal skills and pride of workmanship was the order of the day. Now days, it seems like the machines have all the skills and the workman are just slaves to smart machinery. Maybe I have just lived too long. james
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