SAV. 99 DOM?

MIKE WISKEY

dose anybody have a quick dom for a savage 99 #574304?
thanks

Hawk Carse

Look at
http://www.savage99.com/savage99_dates.htm

The serial number lookup runs out at 566000 in 1950
Look for a letter on the lever boss.

MIKE WISKEY

thanks Hawk, the only marking on the 'boss' is 23b so I'll guess late 1950

He Dog

Dating Savage 99's

The Lever Boss Code (LBC) is located inside a lightly-struck oval on the lower, front side of the lever boss. The lever boss is the lower extension of the receiver into which the lever rotates.

Inside that light-struck OVAL (not a circle), you'll see numbers followed by a letter. The number(s) is the inspector's number and the letter represents the year the rifle was manufactured.

Beginning in 1949, Savage began putting a LBC on their Model 99 rifles. To represent the year of manufacture, Savage used the letters of the alphabet beginning with the letter "A" which represented rifles made in 1949.

In 1950, the letter was changed to "B". In 1951, the letter was changed to "C" and so on and so on through the letter "Y", the last of the LBC letters which was used in 1971.

The letters O and Q were skipped due to their similarity.

And so, if your rifle was made in 1956 and inspector #16 inspected your rifle, the LBC, stamped inside the oval, would be 16H. If your rifle was made in 1957 and inspected by inspector #17, your LBC would be 17I.

There was a considerable amount of the mixing of serial numbers through the 1950s making it difficult or almost impossible to absolutely determine exactly what year a given Model 99 was made strictly by considering the rifle's serial number.

It appears that, from time-to-time without any obvious reason, rifles were pulled off the assembly line and set aside for a year or more (often more), then put back onto the assembly line and finished thus making it's serial number considerably out-of-sequence with the then current production's serial numbers.

It is likely you'll need good light and a magnifying glass to read the LBC since so many of them were struck so lightly. In fact, it is rare to be able to even see the whole oval... and some folks have mistaken the front half of the lightly-struck oval for a large letter "C"... but there is a considerable difference in size between the front of the oval and the letters used plus the fact that the year of manufacture's LETTER follows the inspector's number.

A - 1949
B - 1950
C - 1951
D - 1952
C - 1953
D - 1954
E - 1955