07/09/2026
Throwback Thursday by Lee Schanz, Jr.
The Man Behind the 99
To start the story of the 99 Savage, we must first look at Arthur Savage. Unlike Browning and Re*****on, Arthur was not "born into" the fi****ms business. His father was a special commissioner to the West Indies, and Arthur was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1857. He was educated in England and America and after getting out of school, he moved to Australia and married Ann Bryant. Ann bore him 8 children, 4 boys and 4 girls. Arthur managed the largest cattle ranch in Australia, which was saying something. Evidently, he got bored with ranching and moved back to Jamaica where he took care of a coffee plantation. Eventually, he ended up in America, where he was involved in a tire company and a citrus farm. I guess the easiest way to describe Arthur was that he had a diverse portfolio!
Somewhere along the way, he invented a torpedo that was adopted by the Brazilian government, and in 1892, he submitted the design for a new rifle to the U. S. government. The rifle wasn't adopted, but Arthur "tweaked" it into a sporting arm which he introduced in 1895. The 1895 Savage was chambered in the .303 Savage, which should not be confused with the .303 British. They are 2 distinctly different cartridges. I post things about the Savage 99 pretty frequently, and some of my stuff gets hundreds of thousands of views. Invariably, there is always someone who swears up and down that his daddy's uncle's cousin's 99 is chambered for the .303 British. The fact is, it's not possible! The 99's action is not long enough to accommodate the British warhorse.
The .303 Savage was one of the first cartridges to be loaded with smokeless powder, and its performance is similar to the 30 W.C.F. (30-30). The main difference was the Savage cartridge was usually loaded with heavier bullets, 180-190 grains. We just celebrated 250 years of American freedom. If you prefer the 30-30 to the .303, you are entitled to your opinion. If you think the .303's heavier bullet makes if more effective on bears, more power to ya! I like 'em both, and nit picking about a few grains of bullet weight or a few feet per second makes me nauseous. They both are wonderful cartridges for hunting deer and bear in the brush and big woods.
Savage didn't have facilities in 1895, and made an agreement with Marlin to produce his firearm in their New Haven, Connecticut plant. History is funny, but the first Savages were actually Marlins just like the new Marlins are actually Rugers!
According to Doug Murray's wonderful book, "The 99", Savage founded his own company in 1897 and started producing an improved version of the 1895 in 1899. The new gun was called the 1899 and was offered in six distinct models: the long rifle, short rifle, octagon barrel, half round - half octagon, military, and saddle ring carbine. They were all assigned their own letter, and Savage was in business.
In the early days you could order you Savage with all kinds of special features, just like a Wi******er. For the most part, WWI changed the way guns were manufactured and ordered in this country. From 1920 on, you are less likely to find Savages with special features and the name of Savage's marvel was shortened from the 1899 to simply "the 99".
During WWII, Savage did the same thing as the other American gun companies and produced fi****ms for the war effort. If memory serves me right, I'm pretty sure Savage produced a bunch of Thompson sub-machine guns of gangster fame.
As wonderful as the 99 is, Savage patented a detachable box magazine for it in the early 1900's and for all practical purposes is the father of the detachable box magazine for sporting rifles. His patent ran out after his death, and the 99 never used the feature until 1965. He is also the inventor of the Radial Tire. Crazy!
There is always that one guy that wants to parrot that he was fired by his own company. Much like John Browning and Wi******er, the people that do things don't always get along with the people that manage things. My money is always on the guys that get things done.
Arthur Savage died in 1938.
The photo is Maine's most famous buck ever taken with a 99. Fred Goodwins "Silver Ridge Buck".
