The Savage 110 turns 50: this classic bolt-action has never been so refined.
COME BACK WITH me a few years. As the untested presidency of Lyndon Johnson faces a gathering storm in southeast Asia, the Beatles draw an Elvis welcome on the "Ed Sullivan Show." At the height of the Cold War, Ford Mustangs make their way to market. Sportsmen can still get rifles from mail-order houses like Klein's, which offers 03A3 Springfields for $29.95. Sears Roebuck lists SMLEs for less than shooters two generations hence will pay for a box of .303 cartridges. Winchester's .300 Magnum has seen its first season afield, and a Model 70 nobody wants is giving Remington's new Model 700 an unexpected boost in sales.In 1964 the Savage flagship is still its Model 99 lever-action rifle; you can buy it for as little as $102.50. But the day of the lever gun is waning as reliable, fog-proof rifle-scopes and powerful belted magnum cartridges extend the reach of bolt-actions. Affixing scopes to military rifles--and barreling them to something other than service cartridges--more than doubles their initial surplus cost. So, six years ago, Savage entered the bolt-gun market with a rifle that sells for less than a Model 70 or 700.
Herewith the Savage Model 110, adapted from the 1964 entry in Shooter's Bible:
* Barrel: 20 inches, chrome-moly steel, in .243 or .30-06 (24 inches, stainless in 7mm Magnum).
* Action: Cocks on opening. Double front-locking lugs. Recessed bolt head fully enclosed in receiver. Twin gas ports. Cocking indicator. Top tang safety locks bolt, sear and trigger.
* Magazine: Staggered 4-shot box (3 in 7mm Magnum) with buffer to protect bullet points.
* Stack: Monte Carlo with full pistol grip, fluted comb, walnut finish (recoil pad on 7mm Magnum).
* Sights: Gold bead front on removable ramp. Sporting rear with step elevator. Receiver tapped for aperture sights and scopes.
* Weight: 6 3/4 pounds (7 3/4 for 7mm Magnum)
* Price: $99.50 in .243 and .30-06 ($109.50 for 7mm Magnum).
You could also snare a Model 110 MC with a 22-inch barrel and checkered walnut stock in .243, .270, .308 and .30-06 for $116.75; a 110 Magnum with 24-inch barrel in .264, 7mm or .338 Magnum for $126.75. Savage offered left-hand versions of the MC and Magnum rifles for a $5 premium.
Fast-forward to the present, when $5 won't get you to the right-hand side of the coffee board at an airport Starbucks. Fifty years after the introduction of Savage's 110, more than 3.5 million of these rifles have been shipped.
The 110 was not Savage's first bolt-action centerfire. On August 22, 1916, Savage engineer Charles A. Nelson filed a patent application for a tang safety. Drawings showed the safety on a rifle that by all logic had been on the boards before mid-1915, when the Driggs-Seabury Ordnance Company acquired Savage Arms. While making Lewis machine guns for the war effort, Savage also designed an infantry rifle in .30-06. Its production was short-circuited when Winchester, Remington and Eddystone stopped their manufacture of Pattern 14 Enfields to build Model 1917 Enfields. Reorganized in June 1917, Savage Arms Corporation refined its Mauser-style rifle to come up with a spotter it designated the Model 20, which appeared in .250-3000 and .300 Savage. In 1929, the rifle was dropped.
The Model 20 earned plaudits from explorer Roy Chapman Andrews, who took it to the Gobi Desert while working for the American Museum of Natural History. The rifle's bolt was its only forging; the receiver came from bar stock and used a separate recoil lug--nearly thirty years before Remington incorporated this design in its 721-722 series. Tubular receivers appeared as well on the Savage model 40 Sporter and 45 Super-Sporter that succeeded the Model 20. These featured detachable box magazines and two additional chamberings: .30-30 and .30-06.
War claimed the 40 and 45. Afterward, Model 99 lever-actions sold briskly. But the increasing popularity of telescopic sights and magnum chamberings, and of competitors' Model 70 and models 721-722 rifles, spurred development of a new bolt gun.
The company turned to Nicholas A. Brewer, who had come aboard in 1929 and delivered the top-selling models 87 and 6 autoloading .22s. Though he had retired for health reasons before the war, he helped Savage build .50-caliber machine guns. With John Pearce, he revamped the Thompson sub-machinegun, reducing unit cost from $67 to $33. Brewer also designed the Model 325 Stevens, a 1947 introduction that appeared first in .30-30, then .22 Hornet. When Savage asked him for yet another rifle, he agreed. During the mid-'50s, he mailed a series of parts drawings from his Florida home to Chicoppee Falls. They showed his fondness for the Model 20. The new rifle had a tubular receiver with a separate recoil lug and tang safety. A separate barrel nut made headspacing easy. He dodged Remington's bolt-face extractor patent with a hook reaching into the recess from outside. He added gas baffles to protect the careless handloader.
Hardly had Savage completed tooling for this new rifle when Nicholas Brewer died. Initially slated for an introductory price of $97.95, the first rifles, in .270 and .30-06, were instead cataloged at $109.95. That list price evidently inspired the model number. The February 1958 issue of The American Rifleman gave the Savage 110 its first of many favorable reviews. Short-actions and left-bolt titles followed. In 1964 engineer (and benchrest shooter) Roger Greenleaf suggested trigger improvements. The Model 110-C, which appeared in 1966, incorporated a better trigger and a Greenleaf-designed detachable box magazine. It also had a bolt head that reduced counter-bore depth in the barrel, plus a newberyllium-copper extractor after the design of the Winchester 88's steel claw.
From 1965 to 1969, Savage marketed high-grade 110P and PL rifles, with Weatherby-style stocks fashioned by Sile in Italy. P and PL actions were engraved in Germany. In 1970, Savage filled an order from Canadian Industries Limited for 200 right-hand and twenty-five left-hand 950-T single-shot target rifles adapted for use with Parker-Hale sights. These ten-pound Model ll0s were stocked by Bishop.
Until 1969, year of manufacture was encoded in a letter stamp enclosed, with two numbers, by an oval: J=1958, K=1959, L=1960, M=1961, etc. After that, Savage deemed company records adequate for dating rifles by serial number, which had begun at 1,000 in 1958. In December 1968, a new serial system began: A001001.
Savage introduced the 112V varmint rifle in 1975. Patterned after the 950-T target rifle, it featured a short, right-hand, single-shot action and a heavy 26-inch barrel with scope blocks. But the short receiver was falling into disfavor and was dropped in the late '80s. Within a decade, Savage had a new .308-length action on line. Nearly .9 inch shorter than the long action, and .3 inch shorter than the 110's original short mechanism, it appeared with two-digit model numbers. These still designate short-action Savage bolt guns: 10 for law enforcement rifles, 11 for standard-grade hunting rifles, 12 for varminters, 14 for deluxe hunting rifles, 16 for stainless versions. An additional "1" up front indicates a long action.
Under the leadership of Ron Coburn, Savage has introduced several notable improvements in its bolt-action line since the 1990s. Most significant: the AccuTrigger, which employs a center tab in the curve of the finger piece as a secondary safety. The tab must be depressed before the sear will release. Accidental discharge is virtually impossible. At the same time, this clever design allows for a crisp, relatively light trigger pull. Coburn also trimmed bulk from the clubby stocks that had characterized 110-series sporters. His team improved detachable magazines with straight-up feed and more convenient releases. Classier rifles with cut-checkered walnut stocks appeared, too.
These refinements have not compromised the strength, simplicity and economy of function that gave the first ll0s broad appeal. The bolt body, once made from bar stock and now machined from tubing, still has a separate chrome-moly bolt head. A small amount of bolt-head play upon firing lets the locking lugs engage perfectly with their seats, contributing to a vault-tight lock-up and the 110's fabled accuracy.
Today you can choose from more than five dozen variations of the famous Model 110, all featuring the handy top-tang safety (now with three positions) that Charles Nelson sketched in a patent drawing before World War I. Albeit the last fifty years have flooded the hunting market with rifles, none is more versatile or rugged than the Savage 110, none more accurate off the shelf. None delivers more value for the money.
Contact | SAVAGE ARMS; (866) 233-4776; savagearms.com
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| Author: | van Zwoll, Wayne |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Petersen's Hunting |
| Article Type: | Product/service evaluation |
| Geographic Code: | 1USA |
| Date: | Jul 1, 2008 |
| Words: | 1405 |
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