Look at GunBroker,. They have them listed from time to time. Finding a Sav 99 in most any cal is getting harder and harder to find. When you see one.......buy it.

Unless your just a "looker."

 

Great cartridge! Like a 30-30 with heavier bullets, and in the savage you can use pointed ones! Friend of mine has one and I've been trying to trade him out of it for years!

 

Interesting caliber, at present buying loaded ammo for the 303 Savage is near impossible.

About 4 years ago, I had one in a Savage 99 refurbished for a family friend. He was an older gentleman that was given the rifle as hand-me-down when he was a boy. He hunted with it for most his life and it looked a bit rough. Stock was in dire need of replacement and 95% of the blueing was non-existent. I personally had never had a desire to own one, but after a trip to my local gunsmith, a good tear down, cleaning, re blue, and a new fitted walnut replacement stock... WOW... How cool. Beautiful lines, interesting rotery action design, even a unique brass round counter built into the side of the receiver. Hard to imagine why they ever quit making the model.

I did a little homework after the fact. The round was originally designed in the late 1800's to compete with the 30-30 Win. The caliber was originally designed around the slightly larger 303 bullet (.311), but in the end was mass produced barrelled to shoot standard 30 caliber .308 diameter bullets. Yet, Savage stuck with the 303 name. The original factory loads were centered around a heavier 190gr bullet. Having a but less case capacity, combined with the heavier bullet, factory ammo is a few hundred fps slower the the 170gr 30-30 Win rounds. The older family friend still had a box of original 190gr factory ammo from the 50's. Very cool looking. The tip of the 190gr seated bullets seem to extend out quite a ways from the end of the case neck. Almost reminded me of the way the older military 6.5x55 Swedish ammo looked. I have to imagine that would have given the 303 Savage round great stability in flight. Even with the 303 Savage round being 300fps slower then the heaviest 30-30 Win rounds, the heavier 303 bullets had to produce good knock down energy. Everything about the rifle and cartridge was fascinating to me.

In regards to finding loaded 303 Savage ammo... Before the Obama scare induced ammo crisis, a little over 3 years ago Hornady made a limited run of the obsolete 303 Savage ammo. It was only offered in 170gr loads, yet I picked the old boy up a few boxes of the ammo anyways. The newly ran 303 Savage head stamped brass was worth the cost of the loaded ammo alone. Out of curiosity, the only ammo I have recently seen available for the 303 Savage is custom made utilizing 30-40 Kregg brass.

 

Hard to imagine why they ever quit making the model.

From what I've read on Chuck Hawks, they were discontinued "due to decrepit machinery and increased cost."

A shame, in my mind. They are beautiful guns and I consider myself lucky to own one.

 

fine old rifles; heavy enough to make shooting them fairly pleasant, even with full-power heavy-bullet loads (180, 190gr), and given the extra barrel length, they'll compare velocity-wise with the 30-30 170's. mine has an extra-length (special order) 28" octagon barrel and weighs 8-1/2 pounds with its lyman receiver sight and leather butt-cuff. I bought some 190gr bullets from Hawk, and sometimes pull 190's from vintage ammo, but 180s can be used if you use the lee fcd. most 30-30 bullets have the crimp groove for the proper oal, which is a bit over 1/2" longer than the case. the twist on the savage is the same as the 30-30, so anything that shoots well in yer 30 should shoot fine in the 303. mine's a hoot with 110gr spirepoints. a bit more case capacity (and a stronger action) than most 30-30 leverguns. they've taken most, if not all, dangerous game on 5 continents. brass can be had--mostly european manufacture; bullets, of course, are everywhere.
mind yer topknots!
windy

 

Savage 99's, per John Savage, were barreled with .308 barrels and made an engineering decision to use .311 bullets to up the pressure without increasing powder charge - remember times were hard and there were shortages of everything, including money. Unique idea if nothing else. Most folks are squeamish about such things and just load .308's as the factories have chosen in our liability-driven world. However, most of us have chosen to size our cast bullets over the size of the barrels to get "best performance". Same concept as far as I'm concerned.

Digression: I am a 41mag fanatic and 303Savage brass was the closest in head size so I became a fan almost overnight. I used a lot of 30-30 and 32WSPL brass cut to 41mag length back when 41mag brass was impossible to find. The head was a tad undersize and I kept the loads in the plinking arena, and then one day I said, why not, so I started loading them with my heavy loads. I've never had one fail yet even though the heads are small. 303 Savage brass cut to length was a near perfect fit, but was difficult to find, plus I had found a supply of 41mag brass and stopped converting other brass.

Jeff

 

I have two 99s in 303 Savage; one made in 1904 and the other in 1914. Both have 26 inch barrels - the '04 is octagonal, the '14 is round. The older 99 has a round cartridge counter window. I'm not sure about the 1914 model. At some point early on, Savage changed to a more rectangular window rounded on both ends. As others have noted, the ballistics are very close to the 30-30. I think Savage initially designed the 303 as a military round but it was not adopted by the armed forces. I don't have my Murray's book with me right now to verify that. Also, I believe the 303 was created the year prior to the birth of the 30WCF aka 30-30. As I am not at the home where I keep all my gun stuff, I am working from memory.

I killed a whitetail doe a few years back with my older 303 using the factory sights. At about 80-90 yds. it was bang flop. As best I recall, I bought some custom ammo for the 303 from Wisconsin Cartridges. I believe the ammo is loaded with 180 grain soft points.

 

The 303 Savage was not brought back into production after WW2. It was commercially introduced in 1895 for the 1895 rifle, one year prior to the introduction of the 30-30 in 1896. Good shooters are not hard to locate. There are customs runs of ammo here and there, but has not been a mainstream factory production item for at least 40 years. Vintage ammunition and cases can be found, especially on the auction sites. Lee makes dies and factory crimp die, Hawk produces a dedicated 190gr Flat Point, Privi makes new brass, good quality and readily available. Standard 30-30 bullets are also good and 30-30 re-loading data is commonly used. Have a 1929 G 303, with a Lyman SA sight and Marbles cartridge adapter (32 S&W short), the rifle is alot of fun.

 

Texas Shooter,
You are right as usual. Arthur Savage did design the model 1895 and the 303 cartridge with a military contract in mind. The 1895 became the 1899 with a few modifications to the bolt and existing rifles could be changed to update the design. According to CARTRIDGES OF THE WORLD, the 303 Savage was introduced the same year as the 30 WCF, 1895.Why they didn't use a pointed bullet in the rotary magazine has always been a puzzle to me.

 

PM sent.

 

DC,
Nice rifle, do you have the 410 shotgun barrel for it?

 

Sadly No .410 barrel.

 

I just bight a 99 H carbine in 303 Savage off of Gunbroker. I own a 99E in 308 and like it a lot. Right now I am trying to round up some brass to start loading for it as I have already bought a die set. From my recent searching there is some loaded ammo available, most of it goes for between 30-35 dollars a box of 20.
I own several other rifles in 30-30 and think the 303 has a lot more cool factor even though they are almost duplicate of each other ballistics wise. From what I have read, Savage made most of the barrels in .308 with a 1-10 twist but there are a few out there that claim there barrels slug .310 groove.
The rifle I bought has not been drilled or tapped and will stay that way. for hunting I really need to use a scope but for this rifle I will try to make a simple peep rear sight for a see how it shoots.
To me, the 99H with the 20" bbl. straight grip and steel carbine butt plate is the nicest looking and best handling of all the models.
Being in 303 makes it even more attractive. :bootyshake::bootyshake::bootyshake:

Jedman

 

I've had very little luck with the old factory ammo in 303; my firing pin pokes through a lot of the primers on the white-box silvertips, and the green-box 180's, which are mostly older, seem to have very brittle brass, causing case-head separations. I have used the new european brass with success, and the silvertips i now pull and reload with modern primers (mostly CCI's) and powders; i don't trust the old remmie brass no matter how nice it looks. I see no need to hotrod this stuff, but there should be a better range of .308 spirepoints available--the problem seems to be that most 180gr .308 bullets begin their taper too far back from the nose, and wind up leaving a pronounced lip that can hang the case up in the feeding process. The case neck is certainly long enough to provide adequate bullet tension; there's not enough recoil to make the bullets jump from recoil in the 303, so a crimp into a cannelure isn't really necessary. The older reloading handbooks have load data for the 303; though some of it is for obsolete powders, some are quite readily available. Interestingly, P.O. Ackley's 2-volume manual doesn't comment on whether he's loading .308 or .311 bullets, but he puts the 303 Savage load data on the page right between the dozens of .308 and the several 7.7mm/.311/.312 loads he provides data for--guess he wanted to keep his options open!
windy

 

Jedman: as of today -- 9/19/15 -- Buffalo Arms has Privi Partizan brass .303 Savage -- Reloading Supplies|Buffalo Arms Company

Lee offers die sets as well as Redding.

I have a 1936-37 Savage M99H carbine in .303 Savage. Interesting round. Mine has the Savage front sight and the correct Redfield receiver sight. When the light is right, it holds 1.5" - 1.75" for 5 shots at a 100 yards.

 

my father has his fathers 99 303 sav I get to shoot it once in a while its a joy!!! and I have brass too

 

My 303 Savage 99 dates to 1925. I've never fired it. I do have 4 boxes of loaded ammo, but no empty brass. Guess I should get her out and fire a few rounds. Also got a 99E in 308.

 

:eating:I know when my grandpa pointed his 99 in 303 savage at a deer and pulled the trigger, we had meat in the freezer, I would like to know where that gun is today !!!!

 

A .303 Savage is not real hard to find; there are probably a dozen on Gun Broker every day. But finding a nice condition, unmolested example will take a bit of effort and patience. The .303 Savage is a gem of a whitetail bullet. Ballistics are slightly better than a 30-30, but many would say very similar. I have a 1920 99F in .303 Savage and a 1913 1899H in 30-30; both are light-weight 20" barreled takedowns, easy to carry, and pull up quickly. Both will give any 94 a run for their money. I just picked up and mounted a Lyman 57SA receiver sight on it (2nd pic). This afternoon I finished loading some Hornady 170gr flat nose with IMR 3031; weather permitting, I'll try out the new sight Thursday.

 

Very nice ! I have a 1913 1899A in 303. Not as nice as yours, but shoots good. Right now it has a Williams peep, but I'd love to find a Lyman or Redfield that they don't want my right arm for.