Gunsmithing Savage 99 sight in issues

[Quackaddict]

Hey guys,

A near and dear friend of mine asked me to help him work up a handload for his Savage 99 in 300 Savage. I hunt on his land and agreed, I settled on a 150 grain Hornaday SST over IMR 4064 (looking for about 2700 fps all said and done). I have ran into a snag with the peep sights on the gun and getting it to zero correctly.

Basically the handloads shoot 3-4 inches high at 50 yards and were 8-10 inches high at 100. Gun sights consist of a williams rear peep aperature and a front post that is .375 high. The elevation adjustment is bottomed completely out and it still shoots this high.

After doing some looking around, it seems easy enough an answer to fit the gun with a new (higher) front post to get a bit more movement out of the sights and get them off max adjustment.

Do any of you know what height post I should be looking at? The next two heights are .406 and .450. I am thinking the .450 should get me plenty of range, but there really isnt any refrence material I have found regarding front post height.

Secondly, are there any precautions one should take when drifting the current post out? My friend has hunted with the gun since he was a boy and the last thing I wanna do is mar or damage part of it.

And before anyone asks, he hasnt sighted the gun since I have known him, I dont know what the factory loads shoot like through it. If I had to guess they were high to considering most of the deer he kills are within 25 yards with it.

Thanks guys!!

 

[Outsydlooknin75]

Re: Savage 99 sight in issues

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: opshin556</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You can also take a small file to the front sight post and take off what you need drop the rounds down. </div></div>

Front sight goes opposite ...... if he needs to bring POI down he needs to go UP with the front sight not down.

 

[E. Bryant]

Re: Savage 99 sight in issues

This is fairly straightforward geometry, but since 8th grade was a long time ago for most of us, it seems like a tricky problem.

You need to pick up at least 10 MOA, which is 0.167 (10/60) degrees. Let's round that up to 15 MOA to give at least a bit of adjustment on the bottom end, so now we're at 0.25 degrees.

Using a calculator to find the tangent (rise/run) of 0.25 degrees gives us 0.00436. Multiply that number by the distance between the sights, and you have the additional height required for the front post.

Just as an example, 20" between the sights would indicate that you need approximately 0.087" more height on the front sight post, which means that the 0.450" post might still be a bit short if indeed we want to leave some downward adjustment once we're complete.

You'll obviously need to do the math for the actual measurements of the rifle.

I usually drift sights in and out using a brass punch. Any marks tend to come right off with a bit of steel wool and WD40. I'm sure that many of the pros here have some nice sight "pushers" (basically a fancy C-clamp) that work better on delicate sights, but if this were my rifle, I'd be digging in the tool box for a punch and a small hammer.

 

[RTH1800]

Re: Savage 99 sight in issues

Sir,
Place tape on the barrel near the sight and use a nylon or brass drift punch. Push the sight out from left to right when standing behind the rifle. The slot is tighter on left. Insert new sight in from right to left.
RTH

 

[Quackaddict]

Re: Savage 99 sight in issues

Thanks for the quick replies guys! I didnt measure the sight radius but I bet its gonna be close to 22 inches or so, which puts the calculations as requiring a .47 or so high front post. Looks like I can get a .5 height that will probably do what I want.

Eric, since im math retarted, could you explain how you got the rise run number that you did so I can extrapolate that?

 

[E. Bryant]

Re: Savage 99 sight in issues

No problem! First, figure out how much come-up you need in terms of angle. Since you're 10" high at 100 yards, it's pretty simple - that's 10 MOA (minute of angle). I'm assuming you want some adjustment once it's sighted-in, so I arbitrarily added an additional 5 MOA to yield 15 MOA. You can add whatever you want, depending upon the adjustment range of the rear sight.

Next, convert that to degrees. Since there are 60 minutes per degree, 15 MOA converts to 0.25 degrees.

Take your nearest scientific calculator (you can use the one built into Windows, but I prefer my trusty TI-85), and use the tangent function: tan (0.25) = 0.00436. This effectively gives you the amount of additional front sight height per unit of sight radius.

Finally, multiply that by the sight radius.

 

[Quackaddict]

Re: Savage 99 sight in issues

Perfect! thanks for the explanation!

 

[dieselten]

Re: Savage 99 sight in issues

There is a faster and simpler way using a constant that I got from a book by E.C. Crossman. No scientific calculator required.

.000291 x (Sight Radius in inches) = length of 1 MOA at the sights

.000291 x 22 = .0064 (length of 1 MOA on your rifle)
.0064 x 15 = .096" (adjustment required to move 15 MOA)

By the way, an original unaltered Savage 99 model EG had a 24" barrel, plus the peep sight is behind the receiver so add that also. I think your sight radius will be closer to 28-29" unless the barrel was cut.