On a previous thread started by PC, we discussed peep sights on mauser rifles. Both PC and I are planning on building a 404 Jeffrey on a 1909 Argentine mauser.

I remembered reading Jack O'Connor's "The Big Game Rifle" and his mentioning tang mounted peep sights and bolt mounted peep sights. In the book he mentions the potential danger of the tang mounted peep sight. Before I pulled out the book to check, I thought he was referring to the bolt mounted peep sight as being potentially hazardous. Anyway, here is a bit of what he had to say:

"The best place to mount a peep sight is as close to the eye as it can be put. In the case of a rifle of relatively light recoil and with a stock long enough, an excellent place to mount the peep is on the tang. The Lyman 1A tang peep is usually so mounted. Another good location is on the cocking piece of a bolt-action rifle. The closer the peep is to the eye the more one can see through just as one can see more through a keyhole with his eye right on it than he can by standing back some distance from it.

There is only one grave danger, however, having a peep sight close and that is that under certain conditions the peep sight can be driven into the eye. This is particularly dangerous with a rifle using a tang peep if the recoil is fairly heavy and the stock is a bit too short. On an uphill shot there is a very real danger of injury. Some years ago a gun writer took a new wife up into the Alberta Rockies for a hunting trip. She took a shot at a goat sharply above her on a hillside and she was using a short stocked Model 99 Savage in .300 caliber, which has fairly heavy recoil. When she fired, the peep sight was driven back into her eye. She was taken to a physician, after a long and painful pack trip, and the eye had to be removed."

I thought his comments were interesting and I had not really thought about peep sights being potentially dangerous under certain circumstances. He also said that he thought the bolt mounted peep sights were safer since the bolt moves away from you eye when you pull the trigger, but he thought these to be the least accurate of the two.

Tim

Well, first I say it sounds plausible and probably happened. I have personally cursed too many women drivers to doubt it. Too bad she wasn't Francis Macomber's old lady, if you ask me.

Second, I say thank the Lord Jesus that she was a "new" wife and not one that he had spent a lot of time breaking in. That would have been an unholy waste of time and energy. A man can only spend so much time on so many wives.

Besides, a woman with one eye is unnaturally ugly and has no depth perception--or so I've seen with my own two eyes and heard from a couple of unfortunate fellows with ugly-a$$ed, one-eyed wives.

And if you ever tell my wife I said any of this, I will deny it until my dying day. Wink, wink.

Sounds like a good idea to stick with standard safari sights with bigger calibers

fellas,
we are micing words here.

a TANG sight is mount IN THE WRIST of a rifle, like this

http://www.gunbroker.com/pixhost/2003-10-05/shooter222_1065833231_new_006.jpg

and would rather stupid to use on a field gun. I ahve some competitive blackpower cart shooters, and they use this type of sight... EVERY shot has the sight touching them... NOT A FRICKING Chance for me.

a bolt mount or receiver mount peep is AT LEAST as far away from you as the rear ring of a scope... and if the gun is soo short that the scope will cut you, then you've made a different mistake.

a bolt mount or receiver mounted site should be great for you eyes, and give you a very long sight radius.

putting a FOLDING lance between your thumb and eye, on a 50# or power recoiling rifle is just asking for (and it is the xmas season) your mother to say

"you'll put your eye out with that thing"

jeffe

/