doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Savage 99 suspense

I am no expert, but the Savage has always intrigued me. I have always invisioned it as a classy but serious big game gun.
Here is an AB grade with Upgraded wood and a crescent buttplate



And here is a neat one I never should have parted with. Flat mint .30-30 �Spiegel� gun.


A few more of this most recent Crescent Grade. A little oil and that stock will glow! Im sure glad I keep that Marbles sight laying around !

Savage 1899's and 99's are another favorite of mine, too. I own a baker's dozen, primarily takedowns, but none as fancy as these. My compliments to you!

There is a full color coffee table book dedicated to Savage lever guns, filled with excellent photography, well written prose, and detailed specs and identifiers. "The Savage 99 Rifle", by David Royal, 2016. Running $40 on Amazon at the moment. Highly recommended treatise. The sequel to this book will be dedicated to high grade and custom Savage lever guns, but won't be out for a while. The current book does view numerous high end guns as well though.

Maybe off topic, is there a gunsmith out there who specializes in upgrading M99 guns?

I have a good M99 which was my father�s and grandfather�s which I would consider investing into to upgrade.

Why would you want to remove your fathers and grandfathers history from the gun.

Beautiful 99's by the way.

You'll not recoup anything on that "investment". Leave it as is, just keep it functional, will have more value to you that way.

Indeed. While not as pleasing to a stranger's eye, to me that rifle would bespeak a multitude of family related stories- the likes of which a pristine high grade rifle couldn't necessarily.

I'm with others about leaving that kind of family history alone. If the gun was just purchased, and had no extra meaning to my family, I'd have no issue at all with making it my own.

There is a big difference in restoration and upgrading. If I had a quality gun like the Colonel's 99 with family history, I'd have no reluctance to have someone restore it to what it may have looked like when a loved one bought it new. On the other hand, my understanding of upgrading is taking a G grade Lefever and making a fake Optimus out of it. I suspect the poster was thinking restoration and typed upgrade?...Geo

Besides, it would likely be cheaper to buy a hi-grade than to make one out of a worn field gun.

Guns with history shouldn't be restored....if you only ever had a couple of guns and hunted with them and put Georges history on them you'd be okay with someone in your family erasing your history from the gun ?

Although there is a difference between a quality restoration, and making a gun into a higher level gun; neither should be done to a gun with family history. Whatever condition the gun is today, it's history and condition were put there by his family. I'd be very sad if I passed my rifles down to my children and they sent them out and had them spiffed up to look like new.
I've purchased a couple rifles with the specific intent of restoring them, or even salvaging the actions for a build. But discovered provenance unrelated to me, but historically significant. Once I realized they had history, I simply did what I call a "sympathetic restoration" on them. I fixed broken parts, and repaired metal issues, and chips in the stocks. Tried all I could to ensure they did not appear restored, and maintained all the normal wear they had when they came into my possession.
One of these old guns is a Rolling Block Sporting Rifle that belonged to an early Oregon Pioneer who had nearly 90 years of serving the early Oregon Territory government, and was born in Oregon when it wasn't a state. If I'd restored the gun it would simply be another nice old Rolling Block.