Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 1899 Saddle Gun circa 1914, Stevens scoped

I've been looking for something to put a scope I've for a few years on, there were not a lot of options, I needed something pre-WWI with a 22" barrel with a dovetail front sight. I'd looked at a few Saddle Guns online but there never seemed to be one with good enough condition to match the scope at a reasonable price. I picked this one up a couple weeks ago at a small gunshow. It had a Remington 701 rear sight (which seems to be a universal replacement sight on just about everything) and what I think was much later vintage Savage front marked 31A, which was fine since I needed to remove those anyway.

Nicely done sir.

Totally tubular... For sure! But on the serious note, if you had to D&T it or otherwise 'permanently alter'... My condolences to the Savage collector community!

Just my take!
John

Very cool Gene. I may have asked before, but what sort of setup does the 1899F in that picture have?

Very nice! And you found an SR with some nice walnut for it as well.

What a beautiful set of guns.

Top in the group picture has a 3/4" Sidle in a 'no drill' mount, some old reviews considered it the best scope of the day, but it has such a short eye relief I find it uncomfortable to hold even though I know I not going to shoot!

Next is a 5/8" Malcolm in a side mount, it has better eye relief but still to short in my opinion. This mount required adding holes, two holes in the barrel for the front and a single large hole in the receiver for the rear. The rear is held by a single large knurled head screw that makes the scope easy to remove on a take down gun. I take the scope off when the gun is stored.

Third down is the Saddle Gun with a 3/4" 30" Stevens No 161 mounted in the sight dovetails. Acceptable eye relief, the most of any of these, and the scope is not solidly held in the mount so it can slide forward if bumped, the others do not move.

Bottom has a 5/8" Malcolm in a 'no drill' mount, again, it could use a bit more eye relief.

Gene , Have you ever scoped up a Visible Loader?. There is a catalog picture of one from at least 1900 with a full length set up which ,since the barrel is 22 inches ( I think) ,must make it about 22 inches plus 2 or 3 inches. The scope looks like it must be 3/4 "Dia. ,it extends back over the action and dovetails into the sight slots front and back. What do you recommend in this case, since it seems like it would be a good project.

Very nice

That is a dandy Gene.

Great guns!

Gene always does it with Class!

Nice work and thanks for sharing.

Malcolm, I did scope one Visible Loader and am working on another. These take special scopes that are listed as 1" shorter than the barrels and have a long eye relief – over 4”. The listed measurement on Stevens scopes is for the tube and with the end caps they measure about ½” more overall. The early Visible Loaders had 20“ barrels and the later ones 22”. I have a scope for each length. This was done because they are top eject and the scope would not interfere with using the hammer. After they dropped this scope they listed a 28” scope for use on the Visible Loaders, the ejected cases would have to bounce off the scope, which must not have been much of a problem because they also list the 28" scope for the Model 1906 Winchester (I've got one extra 28" scope and a Model 1906 Winchester, another project?).

The field of view in a ¾” scope 4”+ from your eye is very limited but with it that far away you can see around it giving you an unmagnified field of view that is only limited by your peripheral vision. I found them easy to get on a target off to the side; you can focus on the target and then swing the scope into your line of sight.

For the early short scope I have the correct front mount but need to modify a mount for the rear. The early Visible Loaders had the narrow front sight dovetail and the rear sight was mounted with a single screw, no dovetail. I will need a screw on rear mount for a round barrel.


I also put a Pan-Tech 5/8” pistol scope on a Visible Loader out of curiosity. It has a slightly magnified bubble that you can see around and can be set to focus from about 5” to over 20” of eye relief. They are listed as 1½ power but with the longer eye relief I think they might not make that. If you can no longer focus on open sights, this will work. There also is a small opening in the mount allowing the barrels sights to be used. Not a very sturdy mount, but it could go on almost any round barrel gun, it just has two screws and clamps on.

The view of the Stevens scope is similar but with a much larger circle of higher magnification.

If you look at dovetail mounts be aware that Stevens used two different size fronts, 7/16” or 5/16”, and a 9/32” rear, most other makers used 3/8” for both. Also look for these being modified to fit a different size.


They also listed a special scope for the 425 HI-Powers, these have 3½ to over 4” eye relief, that is another project that’s in the works. This was the only internally adjusted scope Stevens made, mine only has internal elevation as it was first listed, but later it was listed as having horizontal too. These were only listed for a short time before getting discontinued. These scopes were also sold for other makes and the mounts I have are for a 3/8” dovetail, I need to mill it down to fit a 9/32”and the rear mount hole spacing is different so it will need another hole added. The height offset is correct between the two mounts for the 425.

All Stevens Hi-Powers I've seen have the holes in the receiver for this scope.

Splendid!

That is fantastic! Nice job Gene.

Thanx for the info on the Visible Loader. It is appreciated. The mounts 5 and 7/16 ,and the leaf spring, is a source of wonder. From my limited knowledge ,I think the leaf spring plays off against the scope through screws as well as against a fixed plunger spring all built into the ring itself , and the long scope is free to both rotate and slide along the length of the barrel a certain amount with each shot so as not to jar the fine and delicate crosshairs. This may not be correct. Please jar my memory if it is.
Those rings are nice and make the gun look great.

As always, eye candy, especially for those that like the long scopes.

I'm sure going to miss you in Wisconsin. I wanted to get your opinion on the possibility of a scope in the 2 dove tails on my 1902 engraved rifle. Ow well, next time. Maybe I can talk my wife into visiting her friend in Tulsa?