Need a little help

[AJ]

Presently, I have 4 Savage bolt guns in 223, 6mm Rem Ackley Improved, 260 Rem, and 25-06. I have tweaked and played with 3 others in 308 and 2 others in 30-06. I am a fan of the Savage bolt rifles. They are as good as anything else on the market. Like I always say, they do need a bedding job to get best performance, but then all bolt guns do. I prefer Savage's floating head design on the bolt to any others design. It will align with the cartridge giving peak accuracy. I also like the barrel nut. Its the easiest bolt gun to rebarrel.

Some of the drawbacks to the Savage are trigger, astetics, and synthetic stocks. The trigger is functional at best. I replace all of mine with Rifle Basix Triggers. The lines of the Savage are not as smooth or pleasing as a 70 or 700. The barrel nut, while being great mechanically and functionally, looks like crap. But looks don't kill deer. The synthetic stocs are made from recycled ice cube trays and rubber worms. They are super flimsy and are not rigid enough to support a floated barrel when flired from the bench. They flex way too much. Boyd's have good quality, inexpenwive laminated stocks for the Savage bolt guns as well as other guns.

[AJ]

There is a pretty good article in the December 2002 Guns and Ammo magazine about rebarreling a Savage bolt gun. It shows how easy it is and what can be done.