Savage 99 -- Raised Cheek Piece

maverick2

Handloader
Dec 22, 2013
347
28
One of the things on my list of "to do" items now for a while has been to find a raised cheek piece to install on my Savage 99 to raise the comb to a height where my eye naturally lines up with the scope. I couldn't find a leather one that looked/functioned like I wanted it to, and all the pre-fab plastic ones looked pretty cheesy to me, so I played around with some Kydex during my downtime over the holidays and made one to custom fit the 99 stock as well as my face. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out (particularly since this was my first effort with Kydex.) I used one piece of Kydex to conform to the wood comb, a second piece to serve as the new raised comb, and then fiddled with heights and angle of the second piece to get the fit I wanted. Once I got the configuration right, I attached the 2 pieces together with epoxy at the edges, filled the void space between the 2 with expandable foam, and then sealed the exposed ends with epoxy. It ended up being pretty simple to do. Getting the right fit was easy and quick -- found myself spending more time trimming and playing with the aesthetics part to get it to look the way I wanted. When complete, the finished cheek piece weighed in a little under 5 ounces. Had I to do it again, I'd have trimmed a little less expandable foam out of the open end (which required more epoxy) and used the thinner sheet of Kydex (.06) for the outer exposed surface instead of the thicker stuff (no reason to go thicker with the inside filled with foam and epoxy). Had I done these 2 things it would have resulted in one that weighed less than 4 ounces.

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Looks great! That’s a really good idea. I knew an old guy that made one out of wood that was screwed/glued to the stock. I think yours looks just as good. You could get it hydro dipped if you had a wood grain you preferred


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I thought about trying to do it in wood, but my wood skills are greatly lacking for making something like that look good. I'll hold off on changing finish on the cheek piece for a while. This is my project rifle, so at some point this winter the action and barrel are coming off to get changed over to a .243 or .358. I'll strip and refinish the stock at that time, and then put a finish on the cheek piece to match whatever I do to the barrel and action (cerakote or re-blued.)
 
I had one bored out to 358 win. It was a great little rifle. I gifted it to a good friend of mine a few years ago. I had JES do the boring and magazine work. Great turn around and no complaints.

My buddy made one in 338 federal that turned out very well too. It’s a great platform to start with


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Your 358 project is what gave me the itch to do that... My goal is to have three 99s -- one in .243 (to be my wolf, coyote, and longer range shooting toy), one in .308 (my daughters current do everything rifle), and one in .358 (my do everything brush gun that gets 90% of my hunting season carry time). I've got two .308 99F's in hand now, and a third headed my way. I'd like to put the 2 "project" 308s in front of my blacksmith and let him tell me which he feels has better accuracy potential (destined for the .243) before I send one to JES for reboring to .358.
 
I definitely like your aspirations for acquisitions. The cheek piece looks great. You did a fantastic job.
 
A 243, 308 and 358 would definitely have it all covered from varmints to grizzly bears!
Neat set of levers!

I paired the 7mm-08 and 338 Federal in the Winchester Model 88.
Would be fun to have a 257 Roberts to pair with my 358 in the Browning BLR.
 
Nice work. That turned out pretty good.

JD338
 
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