Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Spiegel info

Here are the pages with 99 info from all the Spiegel catalogs I have.


The end of the line for the Visible Loader, it had already been dropped from Stevens catalogs by late 1933, notice the description says "regular cartridges", they would not handle the new Hi-Speed that was becoming popular. The Stevens Peerless, a version of the Savage 29, states for "Regular or Hi-Speed cartridges".




If looking at the holes for the rear scope block, look at the detail showing the "safety" (cocking) indicator, which is correct, and not the picture of the rifle, which is drawn wrong. These holes were for scope block for use with Mossberg scopes, a couple models of which were made exclusively for Spiegel. (Pictures of the Belding & Mull mount from their catalog show the rear block back to far to use the front hole without it coming close to breaking through, or even breaking through the front of the block - so I do not think that mount used these holes... so anyone actually seen a real mount?).




Bottom shows the two versions of Mossberg scopes that could be order on the 99's.

(continued because single post picture limit was reached)

Catalogs from 1944 have no firearms with notes about them, and other items (like car tires), being restriction goods due to the war, I assume 1945 would be the same, but I do not have any from that year.



One of my Spiegel 'Specials', Stevens Model 49 factory drilled & tapped with the correct Spiegel version Mossberg scope -

Great research, as always, Gene. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, thank you for putting this up

Terrific information. Thank you, Gene!

Thanks Gene, interesting in how rapidly the price of the old tomato stake was going up. War inflation I guess. David

Great job,Gene!

Since B & M mounts are often brought up when talking about Spiegel's I thought I would just add this here, The information is from an B & M scope catalog and from pictures a couple actual B & M mounts. I still see no reason to believe the Spiegel hole pattern was intended for B & M mounts and really doubt if any B & M mount will fit that pattern.

I had always thought the long front mount would not get mounted with just two screws as close together as on the Spiegel - that spacing is for standard scope blocks which is what Spiegel says their guns are set up for. I scanned pictures from the B & M catalog (these appear to be actual pictures of scopes actually mounted so the location should be correct) and I do not see the rear mount, as pictured, being far enough forward to use the existing front hole on a Spiegel and it would not make sense, at least to me, that they would only use the rear hole. We know there are blocks that fit those holes and Spiegel had a long association with Mossberg, offering most of their guns drilled & tapped for standard scope blocks used for mounting Mossberg scopes - there is nothing to show any association between Spiegel and Belding & Mull - in fact Belding & Mull literature says they insist guns must be sent to them for scope mounting.

Actual Spiegel rear hole pattern compared to picture of B & M mount with line to show locations in relation to rear of the receiver.


Here is a front block on a scope & mount that is very similar in contour to the ones shown for the 99's, this one was probably for one of the bolt actions as shown in the catalog, but the mount is basically the same as shown on the 99, just that the rear mount block would have to have an angle for the 99. I had suspected that those long front mounts would have at least two mounting holes spaced toward each end, and possibly a third in the center - that's what this one has. It does not makes sense to me for them to use any different type hole layout for the Savage than they do for others of the same design, and that front mount was also intended for use just by itself; I don't think anyone could disagree that it would not be very good just using two holes in the front spaced closed together for this type mount.

Actual Spiegel holes compared with a B & M front block similar to the one pictured on a 99.







99 mount just using the front block, certainly it must have more than 2 screws less than 1" apart. Pictures of a single front block mount for one of the bolt actions had 4 mounting holes - 2 in the receiver ring and two in the barrel.

Great info/insight Gene. I wonder if Mossberg kept the hole spacing standard across their various blocks, and if they did, if the Mossberg hole spacing on some Mossberg of that era would match up to what is on the Speigels.

thanks for sharing that information Gene

plab

Gary hunted for the Mossberg scope bases and was unable to find any made for the 99. He checked on the Mossberg collectors sites and no one could verify that Mossberg had made them. Also, there was question if any of the Mossberg scopes would hold up to center-fire use. Add to that that we have yet to find a 99 with what we would consider as the scope and bases advertised in the Spiegel catalog or even a rifle that appears to have had a scope mounted using the factory holds.

Rick, the Mossberg scopes will slip on to any standard dovetail block but they have pointed attaching screws and not cupped. I thought Gary had blocks that fit the Spiegel's, but they may have been Lyman's.

Here is some more information on the Mossberg scopes offered by Spiegel. It should be noted that all the drawings of the Scoped 99's show the front mount to far forward, I think the front block should be right where the holes are, under the sight. I think the scope was just added to the drawing and was drawn to fit around the features already there.

The externally adjusted Mossberg scopes should not have the mounts spaced more than 7.2" apart and the 99 drawing shows them much more than that. Here are three different externally adjusted Mossberg scopes and the spacing on all is between 5" and 7.2" as stated in the instructions -

I do not have a Spiegel to measure but it looks like the center to center of the hole patterns would be close to the 'preferable' 7.2".

Here are two two scope equipt Spiegel offerings. the Mossberg rifle has an earlier model externally adjusted scope and it has about a 1.5" eye relief, the scope on the Steven's (Model 49) is later internally adjusted model with about 3" of eye relief which would be adequate for almost any center fire. They both mount to scope blocks, the ones on the Mossberg are made for pointed attaching screws and the ones on the Stevens are for cupped (so I am not sure they are the originals from Spiegel). Both scopes can slide forward in the mounts, the internally adjusted scope just uses two No 7 front mounts.




The spacing for mounts on the internally adjusted scopes would not be critical, but since all the rifles could be ordered with the externally adjusted scope, the guns all seem to have patterns set for them. Here are the two scopes swapped, they would require some slight adjustment to set eye relief but they slip right on either rifle.