I've used the Harbor Freight bike lift without having to use shims and it seems to pick the bike up level enough for me. I've never had any issues.

The motorcycle jack I bought at Sears (the aluminum version) works really well.  While the bottom of a stock Savage is pretty lumpy, you can wiggle the jack around well enough to have the bike supported adequately (when strapped tightly to the jack) to have both wheels a foot off the floor so you can actually reach most of the bike to work on it.

As Dave says, the RYCA version is a LOT more lumpy, so that adapter (with holes and cut-outs for the lumps) makes things a lot steadier.  It took a few hours of jacking, fitting, routing, and band-sawing, but it is fairly helpful.