i am new just registered today. I need help in figureing out whether or not i want to keep my model 99 and reload for it. I found a die set yesterday (hornady FL set) seems hardly used. I have @ 60 cases which were fired from the rifle. Where can i find projectiles? It uses LR primers correct? what might be best powder; i have a friend who will use his dillon 650 to load for me. any help i can get, thanks, joe.
Ah my favorite cartridge. The 99 may be a little picky on load mine sure was. If yours has the 1:14 twist and im sure it does dont bother with anything over 85 grains. The pet load for mine is 36 grains of reloader 17 with a 75 grain vmax. Mine will shoot those into an inch and a half or less at 200 yards. Other powders that work well are IMR 4064 and H380. It does take large rifle primers and the Hornady bullets in 25 seem to be fairly easy to find. Good luck with it.
thanks for getting back to me. . . . regarding the barrel twist. . . how would i know what it is?Originally Posted by stomp442
I love my old Savage 99 250-3000 (1/14 twist). I agree that best accuracy may be with the 87g bullet standard, but I use mine for pronghorn hunting so nudged up to 100g.
I've had good success with:
- Reloader 15 powder: 31-33g (Max might be 36g according to pressure specs)
- 100g Nosler Balistic Tip (have also tried 100g Hornady Spire Point with slightly lesser accuracy results)
- CCI or Federal LR primers (brand may not matter much)
. . . if you can't find Rel 15 in these trying times, IMR 4895 (32-33g) seems to work almost as well. Also Varget, but I don't have testing completed yet. Of course everything changes with individual rifles, but the above provide roughly 1" groups at 100 yds for my beautiful old Model 99! In general, my experience with the model 99 shows [for accuracy] they seem to "like" medium to medium-low powder loads, not the maximum.
I had a .250-3000 and foolishly let it and and another one get away.
I was new to handloading then and the rifle I selected out of the pair that were for sale had a headspace issue. It was the take down model.
Now rather than let it go ...... I was getting incipient case head separations ....... was that I only needed to do what is called a partial resize to my brass.
Rather than set the FL die all the way down to the shell holder, you set your FL die a wee bit high and size the body taper and the neck but leave the shoulder alone.
If you start getting case head separations, get your head space checked or partial resize and see if a few cases re-sized by that method will chamber. A custom FL die made off your fired brass used to be a viable option but setting the barrel back a few thousanths is less costly now.
Hopefully your chamber is fine and you won't need to go to extra lengths because the ballistics of the 250-3000 and the handling of the '99' Savage are very nice.
Years later, I landed a '99' in .243 and it's not going anywhere!!!
Three 44s
Love Dillon presses, but I'd not use one for this task. First, I'd suggest you purchase a reloading manual and read the introductory sections. Hornady or Speer should be easy to find. I've seen recipes for loads (not the ones listed in this thread, BTW) on the Internet that were plainly dangerous! I ALWAYS check the numbers with published data, like in one of those manuals.
JimF -- a pilgrim still <*{{{><
"Preserve Game -- Use a Trained Dog"
Waterproof, Louisiana
Oops. Double-tapped.
JimF -- a pilgrim still <*{{{><
"Preserve Game -- Use a Trained Dog"
Waterproof, Louisiana
thanks. . . . i have a SPEER manual .. . . and will use data from that. . .. thanks again. . ..
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