Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Malcolm scoped 1899's

Here's a group of pictures from a couple years and a few different projects, they are not in any chronological order. The rifle in 32-40 with the manually adjusted Malcolm side mount is not mine, I found the scope and mounted it for the owner, that rifle lettered as being shipped directly to the Malcolm Scope company. I do not think it had a manually adjusted scope originally and the front mount used an additional dovetail, the scope was mounted without any additional modifications so if another scope is found that would use the original extra dovetail it can replace this one, this required replacing the original screw mounted dovetail block with a shorter one to clear the barrel sight and not be to far forward while still covering the extra dovetail.

3/4" side mount when I first got it, temporarily fitted to my rifle in place of the micrometer adjust 5/8".


This is the rifle the 3/4" is now on.

WoW! (..again) Gene, I suspect the curator of Malcolm's museum will what to speak with you! ...or, is that You, Mr. Curator?

Look for Joe's 22 HP with Malcom scope post coming soon....

Good work and research!

Great pics and data! One to bookmark.

In my best Johnny Carson voice...."I did not know that!"
Thank you for the post. Learning all the time here!

Looks like that could explain why some 99s are found with two dovetails.

That occurred to me. We need more info on the location of the second dovetail on the unknown rifles and the known Malcolm rifles.

Mine is an 1899 H, 22 HP. It was accepted to the warehouse August 20th, 1912. It also shipped to the original consignee listed to be the Malcolm Rifle Telescope Co. on August 20th, 1912. The scope and mounts appear to be original. There are no other marks or halo's around the mounts like some thing else may have been on the rifle.It has period correct sling studs and period correct tang sight. The letter does not mention the scope, studs or tang sight, specifcally. Every one that has seen the rifle has concluded that it is all original. And it likes to go deer hunting.

My front sight is drilled to the barrel, it does not use a dovetail.

Nice shooting Joe

Thanks Gene. Another quality post as usual.

Gene, as always, thanks again. Since you started a Malcolm specific thread, I guess this is the place to ask the question. If the scope is mounted offset about an inch to the left of the bore, and is parallel to the bore, the bullet will continue to fly parallel to the line of sight indefinitly. To adjust the scope to hit the bulls eye, you have to move the front of the scope a little to the right, so the line of sight, and line of flight, are no longer parellel. The bullet will cross the line of sight at the point it is sighted in to hit the bulls eye, and continue to get farther away from the line of sight. I know this is pretty much a theoreticle question because at 22 HP ranges it's not much. But in long range shooting, having the scope offset like the Malcolm's, would call for a lot more bullet doping, and that's without external forces. I choose to leave my point of impact an inch to the right of point of aim and continue like that indefinitly, rather than have it cross the line of sight and move farther away from line of sight with disstance. What do you think?

Thats a dandy looking buck Joe, congratulations! And that rifle is "sweet".
JW

It's a much different critter but I have a Winchester 1895 SRC in 30-06 with an offset mount which is necessary to allow top ejection. I zeroed it for the bullet the cross at 100 yards. I though about the Kentucky windage at longer ranges but never had a shot when I hunted with it so don't know how that may have worked out.

Thanks, John. It made my whole year when he walked up when I was holding the HP. If weather had of been more overcast I would have been using the 1899B in 303. That would have been special too!

Joe, I have done some research on bullet travel, I think having the scope offset to the left on guns with right hand twist rifling actually is beneficial for shooting at varying long distances with the same setting, just like having the scope or sights set above the center of the bore helps in the vertical. The left offset on guns with right hand twist rifling will actually keep the point of impact closer to the line of sight over a longer distance than if centered, just like a higher line of sight does for vertical drop.

A spinning object, bullet, baseball (a curve-ball or slider) & etc does not travel in a straight line unless the spin is horizontal and perpendicular to the direction it's moving & then the spin will affect the amount of drop, like a rising or sinking baseball depending on the direction of spin. Here's an article about Gyroscopic and Coriolis side drift - GyroscopicAndCoriolis.pdf I also think there will be a slight effect from the grooves left by the rifling as the bullet spins, similar to the seams on a baseball, or dimples on a gold ball.

If the drift to the right is somewhere around 8" at 1000 yards as the article says is can be for some calibers, then if you have the scope on bore center and sight in at 1000 yards somewhere in between you will be off 8" to the left, if you have it offset to the left 1" then at some point you will be right on and only off 7" at the most to the left at some point after that. This sighting through the trajectory will also keep the line of sight closer farther past the zero point. If the drift were 2" right at 100 yards, having the scope offset 1" left would keep your line of sight to 100 yards +/- 1" left to right and would give a greater distance past 100 yards with it still in that range.

ADDED - found some data for less than 1000 yards, it appear that the effect under 100 yards is negligible, I found an article that says a .308 bullet fired from a 1:12 twist barrel will drift right about 8" at 1000 yards but only 1½" at 500, still having a scope offset to one side should not be harder to deal with than the vertical component of trajectory and a small offset to the left might still be slightly advantageous - wind probably has more effect than any of this.

In the part about the Coriolis effect it suggests that in the northern hemisphere left hand twist rifling would be preferable for long distance shooting, this might be the reason Harry Pope used it. I had read an article years ago that said his reason was that the barrel torque from left hand rifling would twist the gun into a right-handed shooters cheek, after thinking about this while looking a a Savage 1907 pistol it seemed to me it would do the opposite, still not sure of that, I will have to look more closely at a Savage pistol which used the barrel torque to delay the action opening - it's not something I think would have much effect, especially in small bore rifles.

Well done Joe!

Thanks Gene, that was an interesting read, and it actually made sense to me.