Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Cleaning up - Taking Me Back

Cleaning up various closets around the house. Saw this peeking out from behind a winter coat, and had to get on here and just say thanks to everyone.

This is the rifle that brought me to the campfire. It came from my ex wife, and thankfully after the great split-O, she asked me to keep it as she knew I would take care of it and not leave it in an attic for another 40 years.
RickBin and others helped me find a rear sight, and magazine, and a local gunsmith custom machined the screws for it from measurements provided by the campfire. Slot width, dome height and radius all match originals to a T. I have vision problems, so it doesn't get out too much as the rear sight is really hard for me. She's just as gleaming and pretty as ever. She'll go next time I go shooting. She has too

Thanks again everyone for all the years.

Super cool, full circle.

I have one of those. It's the 22 I wished I had when I was a kid. Take good care of it and let everyone know how it shoots.

I'll have to have someone proxy shoot it for me :P.

I'll be lucky to hit a coke can at 25 with the hole in that rear peep.

Yeah, the rear sight is a bit cheap and crude by modern standards, but it is an old gun. You could mount a later Savage 10 or 15 sight on your 19. The screw spacing is the same. The Savage sight sights I've handled don't seem to be as tight as Lymans or Redfields, but they will let you use standard screw-in apertures. Or you could find a Lyman 48Y - which is a chore. Those sights might make your 19 better suited to your needs.

I believe it is a Lyman #5 if memory serves me correcrltly. Been a long time. I wanted what originally came on the rifle and the samphire made it happen.

I think it is a 5 you have, but the 10 and 15 will also fit. And the later sites may also be more accommodating to your shooting needs.

It is a No 5 that he has, the No 10 is a direct replacement with the same hole pattern as a No 5 using two different size screws - a #5-48 and a #10-36, the later No 15 has a narrower hole pattern for two #8-40 screws so it would require some drilling. These all are Savage sights and not Lyman.

Which begs the question where do you find replacement screws? Thanks for the correction.

I had them custom made by a smith in town. Cost me $75 for 2 screws, but they're a dead on match.

I make them out of wood screws, they do not match the originals 100% but work, I have made the #5's before (also used for the rear sights in Model 1904's, 1909's, 1911's and 1912's) and had what I needed to make the #10's but this is the first one I did (a project I have been putting off). Typically wood screws have wider slots, as do most modern replacement screws (now you can use that Craftsman screwdriver set you got on sale).

Do not try to thread them by using the head, for the #5's I chucked them in a drill & put that in a vise, the #10's I held just in the vise -


Take most of the original threads off to make them easier to start -


The focus if off in this picture, the threads on both screws are good and not like they look here.


The #5's have a slightly smaller diameter head -


I should re-contoured the heads to a lower profile first, that I will do next time,


Here are some Stith mount screws I made the same way, on these I contoured the head by chucking them in a hand drill and using a disk sander to take off the company logo and then add the chamfer. I needed #8-40's and made them from #8-32's.

Man you guys are incredibly skilled!!! I'm just happy that I can mount my own rifle scopes.

I second that motion. Very cool GeneB and thanks for posting!

Gene, how many sets can you make for the #5 in an hour?

Rick, I don't know, and I'm retired... so I really don't want to know! I just make them as I need them. The head on the #5 wood screw is just about exactly the same size & shape as the sight screws for the guns mentioned before. I did have to do quite a bit of searching to find blued slotted head screws, I found the box of #5's pictured above on eBay, it was from an old hardware store liquidation. The tap's & dies were not hard to find on-line even though they are odd sizes.

I had 5 of those magazines at one time. What are they selling for now cause I can only find the one.

I've seen people on the auction sites asking $100 or more and they are there for months and never sell. I bought 1 for $50, maybe 6 months ago, and I saw one at a sale for $45 and I was broke so had to pass, Joe.