Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Interesting peep sight...

From a 1950'ish 99EG that sold on a 2013 auction. Maybe we talked about it back then, but I sure don't remember it. Gun is still wearing the standard front sight.

Anybody have any idea who made this?

Great,something else I need to search for.

"PAT PENDING" with no company name... that one may have never made it into production.

I’ll put my money on Gene.

Never saw such a beast. I can't see how it moves for windage/elevation?

And what's the purpose to it's rotation? I presume all the marks along the outside are to measure that... ???

That cracks me up. I was going to post the same thing....

Calhoun what year was the eg made?

By serial number should be end of 1950 or early 1951.

"PEEL" peep sight?

Don't... I shared the link with a couple people sometime ago trying to figure this one out but we could not find anything. I have copies of patents for quite few sights on my computer and I could not find anything that looked like it. I know if I would have seen a patent for something like that I would have saved a copy but when a looked for patents several years ago I only went to 1946, so there might be a patent. The use of the term "patent pending' does not even require having filed for one yet. Now that I know a possible date range I might be able to find something.

My thoughts on the adjustment were that the circular part looked like it is in a spring base and that there must be an eccentric on the bottom to change elevation as it is turned, just a guess though.

Gene
With your patent search abilities

William P Spofford from Pa
PEEL peep sight for savage 1899 shows up in advertising between 1948 and 50
“Savage 1899 Graduated peep sight”

Have found no pictures so far and am unfamiliar with this sight or manufacturer

There is a picture of one of the Spofford PEEL sight on page 141 of the first edition of 'Old Gun Sights' book, but not the "graduated" one mentioned for the 99.

I did a quick search for any patents by any one named Spofford and for patents assigned to any Spofford and found nothing related to sights. I also searched the US Patent data base for anything classified as a gun sight from 1946 to 1954 looking for the sight shown in the original; post - found nothing.

I used the new Espacenet European patent database to search for Spofford, it has improved greatly in the last couple years - https://worldwide.espacenet.com/

Go to advanced search and a number of fields pop up, you can search any number of fields from only one or as many as you want to use.
The basic format for the date field is just a 4 digit year or a range like 1949-1955, I am unsure of how to do a specific day.

This database will return foreign patents as well as US. The basic information appears to have been manually entered which allows for better key word searches. A few years ago they had a lot fewer patents loaded, I still have found some patents will not show up in searches but this is mostly older US patents.

Try this - in the date field put in 1880-1934 and for inventor Arthur Savage and click the sign just after the word 'any' a box will pop up with three choices, click on 'all' so it will look for both names in the same patent. You will still get more than just his, his son Arthur J. 's will show up and any Savage with a first or second initial of A.

The ring around the sight is thicker on one side and thinner on the other (obviously).

Aha. I see that now.

Gene
Digging through old American rifleman the peel sight shows up first half of 1948 no drill military rifles in the middle of 1949 the adds start to mention savage 1899 found no pictures though.

Did find noske that required drill on the side thought I would post it in case someone here has a rifle drilled in the same manner.
https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/15551467#Post15551467

The problem with that design is as you make an adjustment one way, say up, it would also move the point of impact left/right, whether you needed it to move that way or not. Plus, adjustment would be limited or "set" to whatever the sight gave you when you turned it. Hopefully as Gene says, there's some sort of other eccentric involved that would allow the desired adjustment.

One thought- Notice the ring around the aperture is split, maybe the peep itself has a ring around it and is also offset in that ring, allowing both peep and outer ring to be rotated and each giving eccentric adjustment. That would get complicated quick for my little pea brain.

Yeah.. I've been thinking the same thing. If there were two "rings" that could be adjusted, one that moved the sight up and down, and the other left or right...

There are marked lines on both the front and rear rings, so that may be how it works.

I originally thought the base might be spring steel and flexed for sight adjustment, but I also thought it looked far to thick to do that. I'm now thinking you loosen the two screws on the sides, do the adjustment and then tighten it back down. It appears the piece held by those screws is just a strap going around over the top. If the holes are slightly elongated under those screw heads that would also allow some side to side.