An interesting history...
The Savage 64 rifle we now know and enjoy started back in the late 1950’s as the design of Hubert Cooey the son of Canada's most prolific civilian use gun inventor Herbert Cooey, owner and founder of the Cooey Gun company in Toronto and later Coboug Ontario Canada. The Cooey model 64 was meant to start production in 1964 to compete with the then new Ruger 1022, and the well known Marlin model 60. Sadly, "Hubert" the main designer of the rifle and son of Herbert died before the model 64 was put into production forcing his father to come out of retirement and take over managing the company again.
Herbert not wishing to deal with all the issues of running the company again sold the design of the model "64 Cooey rifle" to "Olin Winchester" of North America. Winchester was looking for a semi-auto .22 design to enter into the lower end market as well and compete with the 60 and 1022. It was agreed that the rifle was to be produced in Canada at the Coboug factory which Olin Winchester re-tooled and modernized to increase production significantly. Winchester also decided to redesign the rifle quite a bit and market it as the "Winchester model 490" in the U.S. making changes to the design of the magazine, bolt charging handle, rifle stock and adding a cross bolt safety in front of the trigger, but internally the rifle was the same design as the model 64 Cooey. It’s my understanding that the rifle would also be sold as the Winchester Cooey Model 64b in Canada in its original Cooey design with the partial hold open bolt safety. But, information on that is not entirely clear or easy to find.
Winchester also sold the rights to Sears & Roebuck to sell the Canada version of the Model 64b as the model 6C.
Around 1974-75 when the "Olin" company decided to sell Winchester off they planned to just shut down the Cooey Coboug factory in Canada and lay off all the employees. But, fortunately for the rifle design and its future an investment group from the city of Lakefield Ontario, which is a name that should sound familiar to any Savage 64/62 owner, offered to buy the company lock stock and barrel (pun intended) and continue the model 64’s production. By 1979 the Coboug plant had closed. After purchasing the company they moved the machine tools and many of the employees to "Lakefield" Ontario and began production of the rifle as the "Lakefield Model 64" for sale in Canada. It seems to be during the “Lakefield” production time that the rifles safety system was changed to the style mounted on the side of the receiver that we Savage owners are, more or less, familiar with today.
I couldn’t find much information as to how or why, but in about 1995 "Lakefield" went into an agreement to manufacture the Lakefield 64 with Savage Arms Co. with the agreement that the model 64/62 Savage rifle would be produced in "Lakefield Ontario Canada" but sold in the U.S.A. and the rest is “history” as people like to say.
Edit:... Somewhere in this mix is the Savage Model 954... Where that fits in is difficult to say. There's just not much information on much of Savage Canada's history.
So, if you’re still reading this, you will likely agree that there is quite a bit of history and story behind a rifle that many sadly seem to consider just a cheap entry level .22 semi-auto rifle. To myself I already knew I liked the 64 rifle a lot , but it made me respect the rifle even more knowing about its history. I’m sure there is even more to the entire story I’ve missed, so this shouldn’t be taken as a definitive history by any means. Below are just a few link addresses to stories that helped me piece this story together, I’m sure there’s even more information out there if a person is willing to put in the time. Anyone please feel free to add anymore information they may have in the comments.
https://calibremag.ca/cooey-canadas-gunmaker/
http://images.ourontario.ca/Cobourg/63626/data
http://images.ourontario.ca/Cobourg/63689/data
