Custom carved Savage Arms Model 99 is my next project. As I’m sure every gun collector knows, this gun was discontinued years ago. It is a very nice gun to shoot. Very accurate and dependable. I have been asked to carve a moose with the Hibiscus flower on this gun. This is a Christmas present for one of my clients wife. She has no idea she is receiving this gun. Many men would never think of giving a gun to his wife. Unless you are like this family. All are avid hunters and enjoy getting out and being in the outdoors. This gun will have a beautiful moose scene carved on the gun stock. It will be outlined with the Hibiscus flower. The forend and grip will have the basket weave along with something else to enhance the design. You will have to check back to see what gun stock art has been put on the grip and forend. The custom carving is all hand finished along with the hand painting that accentuates the detail of the carving. Gun collectors world wide will be envious of this gun. I’m sure it will be handed down from generation to generation. Your comments are greatly appreciated. Please feel free to leave them below. Happy Halloween! Deb

The Savage Arms Company is a firearms manufacturing company based in Westfield, Massachusetts, with a division located in Canada. The company makes a variety of rimfire and centerfire rifles, as well as marketing the Stevens single-shot rifles and shotguns. They may be best-known for the Model 99 hammerless lever-action rifle, no longer in production, and the very popular .300 Savage sporting cartridge, which was the parent case for the .308 Winchester cartridge.

The Model 99, and its predecessor models 1895 and 1899, are a series of lever action rifles created by the Savage Arms Company in Utica, New York.

History

The Savage 99 was preceeded by the Savage 1895, which was the first hammerless lever-action rifle produced.

At one point, the Savage 1895 was one of the contending rifle models offered to the U.S. Army when they were looking for a replacement to their Springfield Model 1873 trapdoor rifle. The Krag-Jørgensen was chosen over the Savage and other models.

The hammerless design is a substantial improvement because the time from trigger pull to firing is less. This makes the rifle more accurate, because the rifleman’s muscular tremors have less time to move the rifle off-aim. A hammerless design is also less likely to jam in brush or clothing.

The 1895, as the later model 1899 and early Model 99, used a rotary magazine to hold the cartridges. The rotating magazine uses a spring-loaded spool with grooves to hold the cartridges. The Savage 1895 took advantage of the spool to include a counter to indicate how many shots are left. The Model 99 continued using this system for many years, until its replacement with a detachable magazine.

The magazine designed allowed the rifle to be one of the first to use Spitzer_(bullet). Previous lever-action rifles used tubular magazines, which placed rounds of ammunition end to end. With spitzer bullets, the tips of the ammunition would touch the primer of the round in front of it, possibly causing an accidental discharge.

During its production history the Savage 99 was chambered at one time or another for .303 Savage, .30-30 WCF, .300 Savage, 25-35 WCF (or 25-35 Win), .250 Savage (also called the .250-3000, as the first commercial round to produce a velocity of over 3000 fps), .22 Hi Power, .22-250 Remington, .243 Winchester, .308 Winchester, Winchester ’72′, .358 Winchester, 7mm-08 Remington, .284 Winchester, 38-55 WCF, and .32 Winchester Special among others.

Savage Arms was founded in 1894 by Arthur Savage in Utica, New York. Within 20 years they were producing rifles, handguns, and ammunition. Savage merged with the Driggs-Seabury Ordnance Company during World War I and produced Lewis machine guns. In 1920 Savage bought Stevens Arms. In 1939, Savage introduced the Model 24 double rifle (a configuration uncommon in the U.S.), which sold over a million copies.

During World War II, Savage turned again to military production, making heavy munition. Savage made most of the Thompson submachine guns used in World War II. As quality wood was earmarked for military gun stock production, Savage produced some Model 24 .22/.410 combo guns and Model 94 single barrel shotguns with stocks molded from Tenite plastic. After the war it produced the first motorized lawnmower.

The company was run by a variety of owners from the 1960s to the 1980s. Savage eventually ran into financial trouble in 1988 and filed for bankruptcy protection. Production was then reduced to the basic Model 110 bolt-action rifle.

A turn-around began in 1995 with the company returning to private ownership, led by Ronald Coburn, previously of Smith & Wesson. Today the company produces a wide variety of firearms and has a reputation for producing accurate, inexpensive rifles. Some of their recent success can be attributed to their development in 2002 of a factory-installed, safe, user-adjustable trigger, called the AccuTrigger. The company recently launched AccuStock an aluminum stock embedded rail system to further enhance action stability and accuracy. This new technology is now available on several of their models.

Savage was awarded the Manufacturer of the Year by the Shooting Industry Academy of Excellence in 2003.

Sorry to say, this gun will not be carved. The pattern the customer had choosen would not fit on the gun. So we have elected not to carve the gun. We’ll wait and carve a rifle for their anniversary instead. This will give the customer time to design a custom gunstock carving.

With the snow here and more to come, I’m glad I can stay in out of the cold and enjoy another custom gunstock carving. The gun I am building a pattern for is an Thompson Center Encore pistol. This gun will be a christmas gift from his wife and children.

Thompson/Center Arms Company is an American firearms company based in Rochester, New Hampshire. The company is best known for its line of interchangeable barrel single-shot pistols and rifles. Thompson Center manufactures muzzleloading rifles and is credited with creating the resurgance of their use in the 1970′s. They manufacture guns like the Encore, Contender, and the Contender G2. These guns not only have interchangable barrels. They also are capable of being used as a rifle.  

My husband has two of their guns. He likes the idea of the interchangable barrels and the opportunity of having a rifle stock or a pistol stock. Still he tells me they are not as easy to change as they claim they are.