Looking for Savage 99 Gunsmith

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Does anyone know of a gunsmith who specializes in Savage 99's? I've got one with excessive headspace and would like a trigger job.

[Wilderness]

Charlie

I've used a Savage 99 (.30-30) with excess headspace since 1980. I deal with it by redefining headspace. I size my shells so the rifle headspaces on the shoulder.

To get past the initial headspace issue, at first I took a bunch of shells, progressively expanded them with .32, .33, ,35 then .37 M Dies, and then back to the .30-30 FLS die backed out. Next time I got smart and made some headspacing circlips out of electrical copper wire. The gap in the circlip was wide enough to accept the extractor. The wire will be of greater diameter than the amount of excess headspace, since the circlip will in part occupy the bevel at the entrance to the chamber. My wire was just a little too thick so I had to flatten the circlips slightly. Depending on the load, one or two shots with circlips fitted will produce a suitably headspaced shell. Rimless cartridges will have other solutions to achieve the same result

As for the trigger, be careful of that, as I'm sure your gunsmith will be. On the final motion of closing, the bolt rises to its locked position, but that position can be variable. The static test of whether too much has been taken off will be to push the back of the bolt from below (stock removed of course) to ensure that the "hammer" does not come off the sear. The dynamic test is to slam the action shut and see how much engagement is left after that. The dynamic test is more likely to find out an over ambitious trigger job - preferably not when done in the field. If you or your gunsmith go too far, Numrich used to have replacement parts.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

That is a fix. Unfortunately, mine sometimes will have a case head separation on the first firing of a factory round. I don't want to pass it on to my children that way.