the guy has a stutter step.  

Verslagen - Yes, I have a stutter step.  LOL.  Thanks for all your help, time, and patience with me.

Welcome to SS

My '02 had some wonkiness with the shifting, worse than the usual description of iffy downshifting. The PO was a little 20-something girl, and the shift lever itself was nearly impossible to get my size 12 under for upshifting, since I can't point my toes like a ballerina, especially wearing boots.. I went to adjust it and realized that the shifter rod had been bent and the shaft end of the linkage had been moved around a couple of notches towards the front. The PO finally admitted her boyfriend, who, "has a bike, too" had moved the shifter lever down so she wouldn't hit it with her foot accidentally. You could see where the shifter rod had been basically bent with something. Anyway, I straightened the connecting rod, moved the shaft arm back to the mark. (The little arm should be vertical,or nearly so, btw.) and adjusted it to a comfortable height. That solved the shifting problems. (It does need some occasional coaxing to get into 1st, but rocking it a bit with light pressure on the shifter does it.)  It makes sense--- the best "throw" on the shifter shaft is going to be with the shifter arm and rod at 90 degrees. That gives you equal movement shifting up or down. if you move it one tooth forward, that would give you a longer movement back (upshifting) but it shortens the movement when downshifting. Some problems are "Previous Owner Source" Maintenance, POS for short...  

Needles,if your shift rod has been bent, I think you should get a new one. If it's flexing on downshifts it's liable to screw you over one day.
If I bought a Savage with a battery that I didn't Know was reasonably fresh and had not been abused, like leaving the key on and sucking it real low a time or two, I'm putting a new one in, because they Know how far from home you are and that it's gonna start raining about five minutes after you get home.. BwaHaHaHaaa! Nope, just a click for you, Buddy!
The shift rod can strand you and faking that in a parking lot isn't easy.
I remember someone had one that was flaky and he got it on the bench and brazed a heavy wire to it. Maybe one of our engineers will tell you how much concern you should have. I'm quite possibly more concerned about it than is reasonable. Maybe a little flex is no biggie.

Yeah, it’s always a bit of a gamble buying an older used bike.  My 5th gear issue turned out to be  a rider issue and not being familiar with the bike.  I was hitting 5th gear and just not realizing it.  There isn’t a huge change in RPM or engine sound.  Since I was still learning the bike and not blasting every gear to a high shift point, I wasn’t noticing the drop in RPM hitting 5th at 45-50mph.  Now that I’ve gone through the bike and feel more comfortable with its soundness/safety, I’m pushing higher speeds and shift points.  It’s much more obvious going into 5th at 60-65mph than at 45-50mph.

The guy was questioning whether or not it was going up a gear from fourth since the rpm change is so small. The shifter not changing gears because it is already in fifth didn't help him with that. I'm saddened often by lifting the shifter again and realizing the box has no more gears to offer.