Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors I.s.o. Lyman 56 S

Anyone have one, in nice shape, complete, with screws lying about?
I'm looking for one for my 99 .300.
I'm looking for a cash and or trade deal. I have a Lyman 30 1/2 in good condition, finish wear and some minor pits on the base. Everything works as it should, and a new Marbles tang sight.
I don't want to notch the stock for a Redfield, so the Lyman seems to be my option. The tang sights are nice, and classic, but I find myself drawn back to a receiver sight.
Thanks for the consideration!

I’ve had more Lyman 56/57 peeps that needed wood removed than I’ve had Redfield.. in fact I’ve never had a Redfield with that problem. I know others have.

If contact with the stock is a big concern you might consider a Williams. I've never heard of a Williams crowding the stock.

Thanks Lightfoot, but I don't like aluminum sights.
Had a Redfield once. Required a lot of wood removal to mount properly. Pics I've seen of the Lyman sight seemed to need none to fit.

Why not use the 30-1/2? I'm just curious, everyone has preferences.

I guess its repeatable adjustments. For windage, the hash marks are only on the slide with no markngs on the base to go by.
The stem has hash marks, but nothing finer. I was thinking about marking the top of the barrel(?) around the beveled edge. The witness mark being the threaded rib on the stem.
My best aperture sight is the #10 Savage sight I have on my TC Firehawk. This sight was for the M23 series rifles and it is an absolute jewel of a sight. REALLY spoiled me...
The Marble tang sight is VERY good. Has repeatable adjustments, but a tiny, easily moved locking wafer. Can't call it a nut. Its SO thin... There's also some play front to back. Makes me a bit nervous even though I can't say it effects accuracy. There's no upright lock like the Lyman has.

I just compared a couple Redfield's I have, they have different clearance for the wood, one is about the same as the one example of a Lyman 56S I have - the one with the flat top knobs. All three have enough extra metal that you should be able to grind them enough to clear any stock, with the one Redfield you could only get about a 1/16" extra clearance and may have to shorten the elevation screw, but with the others you could get almost 1/8", or more, if you needed it, I'd do that before removing wood. When the sight is on a gun you would not be able to see where the metal was ground off - I have a couple Lyman bases somewhere that had that done (if someone has the rest of the parts for one....).

With the two Redfield's the difference isn't quite what the pictures show, I had trouble aligning them.

Have you seen the prices of those things recently? Dayum!

I have a 56S taken off a 99R that did not require an inlet on the stock.

I just put a 56s on a 99T a few days ago,didn,t have to remove any wood either.

I got some better pictures of the 3 sights I posted above. The two Redfield's are very different from each other with one that would require wood to be removed and the other having almost as much clearance as the Lyman 56S.

Here's the Redfield that does not fit, it is tight to the cheek in the pictures but is far from lined up, it would need about 1/16" of wood removed for both holes to align.

This sight also doesn't have a lot of extra metal that could be ground off so it could be fit to the wood instead the wood fit to it, maybe just enough.

Here is the other Redfield, it has flat top knobs and a button for quick slide removal.

It doesn't have quite as much clearance as a Lyman 56S but there is a lot of metal that could be ground off to get more.

Here's the Lyman 56S for comparison.

You can see in this picture the cheeks of the stock are out a little due to the cracks so the clearance would normally be slightly more than shown.

Since I had this rifle out I thought I would get a picture of it, I got this from John Wright (CMHJohn) after helping him with some projects, it was my first Savage lever action. I had been having him bring 99's to the Ohio Gun Collectors so I could get pictures of sights and scopes on a gun, he decided it would helpful if I had a rifle of my own to work with.

He told me this was also his first Savage rifle, so this very unimpressive example was the start of what would become a very impressive collection.

Good photos! I haven’t had a Redfield like that. Just a Lyman. Interesting, photos always tell the truth.

Just to append a Lyman 57SA picture for posterity. This is similar to a couple Lyman's I've run into. Lot of wood removed here.

I finally found a Lyman 56S base I had laying around that had metal removed for clearance. I've always worked with metal and I would go that route. It could be done a lot neater than this example and there is still a lot of metal that could be taken off for more clearance if necessary, even the elevation screw could be shorted some and it could break into the hole for that. Even as roughly done as this one is it would not be very noticeable with the sight mounted.

Yep, that'd be a good plan for putting a Lyman onto a 99.

I sold a 56S NIB a while back. I never mounted it but if I did I would have seriously considered relieving the underside of the sight to match that of a 56. I'd rather remove metal from a sight than wood from a stock, especially since nobody would ever see the underside and because the sight most likely would stay on the 99 for life.