Home Forums Lever Action Central Lever Actions - General Best peep sight for Winchester 94AE?

Which do individuals prefer? Williams, marbles, lyman or something else? Functionality and price wise I'm leaning towards the williams. I like the cool factor of the tang peep though. My 94 will used for hunting.

I have a Williams FP on my M94, and find it a huge improvement over the OEM sights.

I haven't used a Marble's or Lyman receiver sight, so cannot comment on preference, just that the Williams works.

Looks like I would have to drill a hole in the tang of my 94ae for the Lymans or Marbles. Not that the 94ae is a collector, but I don't like drilling holes where they shouldn't be. Might go with the Williams for that reason alone.

I had my 94ae drilled for a williams 5d that I got out of some guys trash when I dumped his cart back when I was a garbage man. It works just fine without the insert. If I went out to buy one, it would be a xs/ashley in combination with their front post, though. They look nice and trim. I had a williams wgrs on a savage bolt awhile back and liked it, I think they make em for the 94ae, too. That would be a nice sight, also.

The Williams is aluminum, lighter on a rifle loved for it's balance. Also it has nothing in your sightline except the aperture itself, the adjusting and lock screws are flush with the body of the sight.

I have a 94AE 30/30 Trapper that I installed XS sights Ghost ring sight on. She will hold 2" groups or less at 100 yards on most days with these 62yo eyes. The vertical white bar front sight is nice, but I would prefer a red fiber optic sight out front for low light conditions. Peep sights are the way to go.

Fisherick, you brought up a good point on the front sight. I shoot an M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, and AR-15 quite a bit, and have really, really gotten to like a post/partridge type front sight.

I recently installed the XS posts with the white stripe on both my Guide gun and M94 Winchester, taking the bead sights off and not missing them at all.

The Fiber Optic sight is very visible, but I have found them easy to damage, so have settled on the XS front sights, though I have Williams FPs on both rifles.

Another vote for the fiber optic in low light, especially with snow on the ground.

Make that 3 votes for a fiber optic front but the green shows up WAY BETTER in really low light than the red. If there's enough light for me to see the deer I can still shoot it with the green. Both of my 94's now wear Williams peeps and green fiber optics.

I like most brands of peep sights, but XS is my favorite by far. They are rugged and the white stripe post is highly visible.

Appropriate Old/Older [STEEL] Lyman or Redfield receiver peeps, hate aluminum.

Unfortunately, they do not make them for the 94ae, just the standard 94. I am looking into the XS sights though, hadn't heard about them before this thread. That's why I posted here though, thanks guys.

Best is always subjective - most rugged, most precisely adjustable, lightest, etc.

The Williams FP is a proven commodity and has the best adjustments of any that I know of. Windage and elevation click adjustments are very precise and allow very gradual adjustment of POI compared to some others that just have you slide things around.

Lymans and Redfields are also click adjustable but current Lymans are made of plastic and the great Redfield sights are long out of production. I love those Redfields and have been known to buy a rifle of lesser condition than another off of gunbroker because the former came with a Redfield peep sight.

If you want a solid steel sight the Skinner is another option and uses the pre-drilled scope mounting holes in the AE receiver but windage is a "by guess and by golly" affair like the XS sights. He also offers replacement patridge style front sights if you like those.

http://www.skinnersights.com/winchester_26.html


FWIW, if you have a dial caliper and know the formula for adjusting sights you can make those sliding adjustments fairly accurately. Or if they rely on loosening and tightening opposing set screws then if you know the thread pitch that tells you how far it moves per turn and that can let you make fairly precise adjustments as well.

(POI Change needed at target / Distance to target) = (sight change needed / sight radius). All measurements are in inches. You know the POI change needed, you know the distance to target and you know your sight radius. With those three you can solve for the sight change needed.

Jim pretty well nails it above. I currently have a williams 5D on my 64a and it does fine but it is not practical to adjust in the field , so the foolproof and Lyman or red fields are the real stars but again they are pricey and much harder to find.