Load suggestions for Savage 99 .308 Winchester

[TUK101]

I picked up a Savage 99 Levergun in .308 Winchester today and was just wondering if anybody has experience with this gun combination and what some good starting loads would be? I have a Hodgdon reloading manual and a Speer reloading manual, but figured that a few of you might have some good suggestions and maybe give me some advice on the limitations of this gun.

[ElkNutz]

I would start with the starting load in each manual and work up from there. Not sure as to what 99 you have but it may be a collect item "someday" asthey aren't making anymore of them. I personally wouldn't push the gun too hard with hot loads. Stick with "middle of the road" reloads and you will be fine.

[TUK101]

Thats kind of what I was thinking too. I am really just looking to see if there is a load that works best for most of these short barreled leverguns in this caliber. This Savage 99 has a magazine and nice checkering on it. It is a Savage 99C Series A. I havent had a chance to see what it is worth or if it is even in that collectable catagory, but I know that it spoke to me when I was looking at it lol. I was looking for a levergun that didnt kick like a mule that I could shoot at something larger than a deer without too much worry.

[The Rifleman]

My suggestion also would be to not try to make a hot rod out of it.

A Model 99 C is not a carbine rifle = so what ever Idea you have about it having a short barrel - is plain nonsense.

I would stick to IMR 3031 Powder and CCI Primers and 150 gr PSP bullets.

A 308 Winchester works best at or near max load which in this case would be about 45 grains of IMR 3031 which is a compressed load.

You will not blow up a model 99 with a hot load, because their action is very strong. But I would not suggest trying to use powders other than IMR because they do not interchange grain for grain.

[TUK101]

Nobody said that I wanted to make a hotrod out of it. I dont do that to any of my guns. I am only trying to find a good accurate load. I didnt mean to say that it has a short carbine barrel on it, only that it is shorter than some of my bolt action rifles.

[ElkNutz]

TUK101,
You have a gun worth taking care of there. You won't find a better built 308 IMO. I would go with a good soft point bullet of 150-165 gr.I run 180 gr RN out of mine for elk. Its not a "pagent winner" but will knock them into next week.

[Pavomesa]

TUK, I think there is only one issue you need to worry about with the Model 99. The action has almost no "leverage power" when closing the bolt. What this means to you is you must carefully size your cases. I learned this the hard way on my first deer hunt. Any case that isn't sized to suit your rifle, you won't be able to close the bolt like you often can with a bolt action.

For any major hunt, I got in the habit of test chambering EVERY round before I went hunting to make sure they would feed.

Other than that, they are the strongest lever action going and almost always capable of very fine accuracy.

[Pawildman]

TUK...They're a good gun. I have an older one in 300 Savage. I hunted moose with a fellow up in Ontario years ago, and that was all he ever used for moose, deer and bear. You probably will want to FL the cases and check for ease of loadability, but it should work fine with a correctly set die, I would think........

[TUK101]

Thanks guys. I have been working out of town for the past couple of weeks so havent been able to check back to this thread very often. I have already fl resized all of my cases because I already found out what you mean by them not chambering very easy otherwise. I have about 100 rounds of old brass and none of it wanted to chamber very easily till I fl resized and strarted over basically. I also picked up some sp 150gr bullets, and I already had some Sierra gameking 168gr hollow points. Now the only thing needed is a new set of rear sites for the gun, the old one is pretty well shot.