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.

That's really about the only thing that makes sense.

Not saying you guys are wrong but that's a crazy way to solve the simple problem of windage and elevation - which is a linear and not a circular or eccentric movement. The only other thing that occurred to me was perhaps the rings adjust the aperature size. But that sight also presents a colossual solution to a problem that was soved in a simple way many years ago - and like years before it was invented.

And that's a crazy looking peep sight.

I think its an anti-aircraft sight! Mybe the inventor had visions of mounting Sagvage 99s in the noses of P-40s or the tail positions of SBD Dauntless dive bombers.

I misread the serial number of the rifle. Soooooorrry. Thought it was 583xxx, it's 683xxx - so a 1953 rifle.

Couple more pics:

Has anyone been able to come up with a picture of the PEEL peep for the 99?

I finally found an example of this sight, now that I got it in my hands I regret buying it, it's a real POS! I believe they were intended for bolt action shotguns or other guns with a wide rounded top, like pump rifles and shotguns. The bottom is curved and fit the contour of a Savage 170 (same receiver as the pump shotguns). The one on the 99 is on an adapter that was probably not of factory issue and the sight was probably never intend for use on a 99. Still don't know who made it, I also doubt they ever actually patented it. This sight also is rather larger and would easily to bend out of shape with the thin sheetmetal construction.

These sights are not very good, it's hard to adjust and after adjustment when tightening everything down the sheetmetal base flexes and everything moves a little. The adjustment consist of inner and outer eccentric rings secured by a strap. There are indicator marks on the strap going both way from the top marked at the 5 & 10 positions both sides. To adjust the elevation the outer ring is turned a number of marks in either direction which will raise or lower the aperture by moving it in an arc - so both the elevation and windage settings change - the inner ring then has to be turned the same number of marks the opposite way to put the aperture back on vertical center. The outer ring is split so when the strap is tightened if clamps onto the inner ring. None of this works very well. Although windage could be adjusted with this sight having the aperture other then centered would mean any change of the rings would affect both elevation and windage and it would be total guess work on which ring to move and how far.

The rings have a wider space in the knurling @180° for indicator marks to set the rings - with them set at 0 the elevation is in the middle of it's range. This example has had a corner of the base cut off.



A couple other 'possible' uses where there might be a reason for the cut corner, one to clear a safety and one to clear a bolt handle keeping the sight as far back as possible, the radius on the mounting bracket is to larger for these 22's and the sight would rock if not shimmed.





The large opening around the small sighting aperture does help get on target fast by giving a wider view. This is not a new idea, here is a 'Killdeer' sight from the early 1900's that offered something similar.

These are old photobucket pictures so I'm not sure how well they will display, is at all.
[Linked Image]
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Link to the patent if the pictures don't show - uspto.gov=00810761

I can't believe you found one! Amazing.. and that is just as bizarre as we originally thought.

Coming up with that sight took the long way around the block to solve a problem that was solved by taking the shortcut through the alley decades before the inventor's boots ever hit the ground. Wow!

...well, some people just don't learn, I bought another one of these stupid sights..... It does answer one question though, it appears they were intended for use on 99's and the adapter base was not a one-off item.

This one is a little different, in the thinnest part of the outer adjusting ring there is a flat filled with white paint, the inner ring has screw driver damage there so I don't know if it had that feature too. The mounting holes for attaching to the base are slotted giving a little windage adjustment there, The holes appear to be punched out obround and not round holes that were opened up. With it mounted it actually seems to work OK for sighting if you could ever get it adjusted. I wear tri-focals and looking thorough it makes a fuzzy circle that my eye centers the front sight bead in and you can still see around that making it easier to find the target point.

At first I thought this might just be the same sight pictured in the first post and who ever bought the rifle got rid of it until I found this thread again.



















...still don't know who made these, or when, or (most importantly) WHY!

Great, now I have to have one. Thanks Gene

Very nice! First, I'd have walked past it 50 times on a table and never recognized what I was looking at. And second, I'd never have been brave enough to tear it apart.

Great find!

Why?

Probably because "somebody" had the belief that if they built it, consumers would embrace it such that "somebody" would sell a pile of them and make some money. Look at the Boone Saturn, an idea that was put into production and apparently embraced by very few consumers.

This is why i come on here,never saw one of those before.Great post !

I like it. It looks like an aircraft bomb sight

Gene, your group of 99's for displaying sights is growing nicely.

Thanks for solving another mystery.

... that 1899 no longer has that sight on it, my sight collection is growing but not my 99's, that gun has had several different sights and scopes on it, it's the one with the 5/8" Malcolm side mount scope setup.

I still don't know the who or when on this sight, I looked through patents 15 or so years ago but stopped at 1945, I recently got bock on the US Patent Website to look from then on and found they had totally changed the the format of the site and the format of all the search filters. I think I have it figured out now.... but it will be awhile before I sit down and look through them. I found over 900 firearms related patents containing the word 'sight' that were issued between Jan 1, 1945 and Dec 31, 1965 and there may never have been a patent issued for this sight. They now have the option to search application, which would turn up a lot more, but again, there may never have been an application for this sight filed.

If anyone wants to look at some sight patents go to the USPO website and open the 'Advanced Search' then from there 'Enhanced Search' and type in - 42/$.ccls. and sight and @pd>"19450101" and @pd<"19651231" You need the periods before and after ccls, $ is a wild card to cover all subcategories, 42 is the classification for most firearms related patents. It took me a lot of tries to finally figure there new format out and get results, so I made a copy -

Being from Wisconsin, I'm thinking that I might look through patents the next time the Packers play, it will be far less frustrating, and there may still be more to look through next spring when the Brewers start to play again....

Well, that worked, took about 20 minutes, I found the 900+ number of 'finds' for the word 'sight' included multiples in single patents, so the number of patents was much less, 15 to 25 a year. I guess I'll need to find another excuse to not watch the Packers Sunday.

Here's the patent for that sight, filed for in 1952, so very close to the time of the rifle that is shown with one in the first post - .uspto.gov/Pdf/2770041

Added- that type of 'aperture' is not something new, here are a couple that are quite similar -
uspto.gov/Pdf/0845491
uspto.gov/Pdf/0810761 I have an example of this sight, never was used. Mine has the 'aperture' as shown in Fig 4.

Herman Boll, Oregon.

Figures it was an Oregon thing.

Good find! I'd have guess mid to late 30's, maybe 40's.