Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 99 Peeps

I recently re-purchased the 99R I sold to a friend last year. He had put on his own Weaver base and rings but never fired it, and re-installed the Redfield base with flip-up peep on selling it back. I asked him to leave the scope and rings off, and took the rifle to the range to see how the peep lined up.

At its lowest setting the rifle shoots high using that peep, several feet over the 300 yard gong at our range. I don't know how much lower a Redfield 70LH places its aperture than the peep-on-a-base kind, but it's often repeated here that the front sight needs to be changed out to make an "R" into an "RS".

My 3rd edition Savage 99 book lists that RS front sight as a "Lyman gold bead front on raised ramp" as opposed to the regular 99R's "gold bead front on raised ramp". Can anybody direct me to a photo of the differences in those 2 sights? I've had no luck searching on this forum, probably not finding the right search terms. Even measurements would help, or histories of what has worked for you when adding a receiver (or peep) sight to any 99.

I have a prewar 99R, which I think has the Lyman front sight. Mine is an R and not an RS, so it's meant to be set up with an open sight. I do know that receiver sights usually take a taller front blade.

In my experience tang sights often will require a higher front sight to get them from shooting high.

I have never had any trouble sighting in using the existing factory front sight with any receiver sight be it Redfield 70 or 80 or Lyman 56 or 57 any I have mounted and sighted in many.

That's been my experience, too. I will add that adding a tail block sight to a M1920 will always require a taller front sight too. The three I dealt with in such a manner spoke to that.

Thanks, guys.

Also seems a 99R can be made into a 99EG just by swapping stocks. Can't find any differences in description of the 2 models stating the metal varies--same pistol grip and barrel contours. Could remove a half pound of wood weight from the basic heavy rifle.

Not an easy thing to just "swap" pre mil wood and especially not Utica wood.

These older Savages weren't exactly model T's

Anybody worth their weight in salt would see it...

?? Explain salt please.

kgb41, you are correct that there are no spec'd differences between the 99R and 99EG (or 99F) receivers from the 1950's barring that all 99R's and 99F's were factory d&t and only some 99EG's were.

But in reality each receiver was ground by hand, and each stock was hand fitted to a specific receiver. If you ever tear down a 1950's 99 you'll find matching assembly codes on forearm buttstock, buttplate and receiver. These weren't done for fun, they were done because the parts usually won't fit another rifle nearly as well as they one they were hand fitted to.

So you can swap stocks, and you might get lucky and get a good fit by doing so. You might also end up with something that leaves the forearm 1/8" of an inch proud to the receiver, or a buttstock that won't fit at all. It's a crapshoot.

Calhoun,
Yep, we covered that back when I bought this rifle---the code on this gun's parts is "KG" and you pointed out the hand fitting then. My point is that the stocks constitute the difference between these two models. I didn't intend to declare that they are assembly-line interchangeable, only that a stock change should be somewhat easier than re-contouring/cutting or replacing a barrel. There are those here who find the "R" models to be rather heavy guns, even if just tongue-in-cheek.

Yep, the stock is the only difference between those models.

That was actually true for the majority of the life of the 1895/1899/99 family. Barrels and stocks constitute the vast majority of differences between models.