Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Marble's special base sights

I recently bought a sight that was supposed to be for a Savage 22... turned out to be for a Ross bolt action. It did motivate me to finally try some of my sights on rifles to see what they looked like and to see if the Ross sight would work on a Savage 22.

Here are some examples of Marble's special base sights, the S1S is for an 1899 and would mount with wood screws -


Here are the three that I mounted, the O2S for the Ross has exactly the same holes as the S2S sights but is taller and sits at a slightly different angle. The longer S2S for the early 1903, 1909 and 1912 has a relief on the under side for the head of the tang screw.




Here they are mounted on guns, note the string through the O2S that shows it is slightly to tall for a standard front sight, also think of the sight radius you get with these, even with a standard barrel -


The hole spacing on Savage's is the same as Marlin - here is the early S2S on a Marlin 1897 with the O2S lined up below to show the difference in height and angle.

Great post with wonderful data! Appreciate the time it took, and love the collection of sights.

+ 1 on that!

Gene,

That is peep sight nirvana!

Thanks,

Doug

Nice job gathering and presenting the information Gene. It would be impossible to tell them apart on an EBay auction if the seller didn't have the model #. Wow.

Nice work and collection Gene.

Gene, my S2S is stamped "S2S-1914" on the bottom, is there any reason why it wouldn't work on my model 25?

Were there any differences which would make it not work on the 25 I guess is what I'm asking.

The comb of the stock on a 25 is farther forward than a 1914 - would work if you cut away part of the comb, same problem with Model 29's and that sight.

I had a couple of those,but couldnt bring myself to put new screw holes in the wood.One was for a 1895 winchester.I would think on a hard recoiling rifle getting one in the eye would be easy.

great info and a great collection , thanks Gene.

norm

I've posted this before but thought a few reading this thread might be interested in seeing one mounted on an 1899. I have never seen one of these actually on an 1899 (other than rubber band mount). This style sight is rarely seen on any rifle but those that I have seen have been on Winchesters - M1894 most often (but what I have seen wouldn't amount to a handful - and that's with 40+ years of keeping my eyes open). On the Winchester, the sight is mounted on the tang (in factory holes except possibly the M1895 Winchester where only about one in ten had tangs tapped for a sight). It does place the sight very close to the eye but the field of view is enormous - basically the entire world

All of these I have are stamped M.S.A. Co which I had previously thought was only used until about 1911, this evidently cannot be the case because the S2S for the 1914 Savage has to date 1914 or later, here I am assuming my short base S2S is for the 1914 - Joe, hows yours stamped - M.S.A or MARBLE'S?

These certainly were not popular sights, of the ones I have only the W2S (was originally a W12S - see below) and early S2S show any use and the S2S was on a Marlin 22 lever action when I got it, it also has an extra hole that was plugged, so it was on something else before that. I have a 1934 Marble's catalog and special base sights are not listed other than some for bolt actions - the O2S (Ross), KS (Krag), S5S (1919 NRA)and S6S (23-A Sporter).


added - Notes on the pictured 'W2S'

The pictured W2S was a W12S (1895 Winchester) and was in parts with the front hole drilled oversize and no longer even round. On 1895's the rear hole used a replacement tang screw but a front mount hole had to be drilled. Knowing that the front hole had to be plugged anyway, I decided to extent the base and make the the holes standard so the sight would work on other models - even if someone wanted to put this sight on an 1895 now they could by using the standard Winchester hole pattern and not have to drill a hole through the lettering on the tang, or the hole could be put back in it's original location and the base cut.

This sight did not come out as well as another I fixed - the other was an actual W2S that had been cut down and an extra hole added for some unknown use.

On this sight the hole had been opened up so far it removed some of the lettering, I tried to save as much of the lettering as possible which meant I could not get a good weld seam and could not finish it down as much.

This is the sight that is pictured above -


These are some pictures I had of the other one, neither sight is mine but were repaired in trade for a couple other sights (that also needed repair - looking back at it now I don't think it was worth it, I certainly will give it more thought before I do anything like this again).

Stamped "M.S.A. Co. Gladstone Mich Pat Oct 20 1908".

Thanks for that info, your sight definitely dates 1914 or later. The patent date is actually Oct 20, 1903, but you will need a magnifying glass to see that it is a '3'".

Do you guys think they sold some MSA marked sights well after 1911 because they were a slow seller and Marble had the parts to use up?

Hopefully this isn't going to be too off topic. Here are some MSA marked sights for the smokeless caliber 1899 and smokeless 1894. Two are the "button" catch and two are the more common later design. All four have only the Oct 20, 1903 stamped. Do you guys have any MSA tang sights with both 1903 and 1905 dates stamped? Thanks.