#1:
Chamber wasn't the greatest, had a small amount of blowby with certain ammo, was fine with others. Guess it depended on the hardness of the brass in any given ammo.
Crown nicked, gouged, and grooved - seems the crowning tools they use are perpetually worn out and chipped, from the looks of the "finished" crown. It was very rough and uneven.
Pits in the bore roughly 3" from the muzzle - a consistent ring of pits around the entire circumference of the bore a set distance down from the muzzle, which leads me to believe the awesome crowning cutters also have severely worn out pilots, the end of which chatter around in there, leaving the ring of pits.
Bolt stop wear - The bottom of the bolt was slowly being hammered downwards from hitting the bolt stop as you cycle the bolt. Was getting worse and worse fairly quickly. It was as if the thing hadn't been heat-treated at all. And Savage later confirmed that they don't heat-treat their bolts, and this was "normal" wear that I was seeing and was not a concern. But it was already getting harder to remove the bolt, as it seemed the trigger couldn't be pulled back far enough to release. This was due to this portion of the metal getting stuck out further and further.
Sights canted, as if the dovetails were machined lopsided. Later I thought it was probably just that the barrel had been pinned in at an angle rather than level.
Poor action-stock fit. I don't know if this intentionally was by design, or a mistake in design. The forestock has a channel cut out for the barrel to go through, which is supposed to be free-floated. But the area was too tall, and when the action screws were snugged down the barrel was jammed against this portion of the forestock hard enough to cause a change in the point of impact of well over 2" at 50 yards. I found this out after I noticed the contact and placed some washers on the action screws between the stock and the action. This lifted the barrel out of contact with the stock, and my POI changed by over 2" at that point.
Failure to extract fairly often.
Weak ejection.
Failure to feed with some ammo, particularly CCI models. Rounds would get stuck in the magazine, with their noses wedged against the front of the mag. I think simply bending the front of the mag out slightly would have solved this, but it went back to Savage anyways, what with all the other issues.
#2:
Same chamber problems, but to a lesser degree.
Same crown problems, but to a lesser degree.
Luckily, I didn't see any pits in this bore.
Same bolt problem, just as quickly.
Same sights/barrel canted issue.
Same stock fit issue.
Same extraction problem.
Same ejection problem.
Failure to feed problem fixed. Savage said they made a slight revision to the magazine design. In other words, they started leaving the front of it bent slightly more outwards so that the noses of the bullets would no longer rub/catch on it.
The outside of the barrel was pretty rusty as soon as I got it. Stainless, mind you. Looks like it was banged around against regular steel objects in the shop, causing tons of nicks and scratches everywhere, which subsequently rusted from the steel deposited there. This one almost shot well enough to just go get it recrowned and be somewhat satisfied with it. Wasn't outstanding, but wasn't really poor. Probably could have coaxed it to shoot decently. But the rust bugged me enough to get it looked after. Another mistake.
#3:
Same chamber problems, worst of the bunch. Lots of vertical stringing, and a substantial amount of sooty marks on the cases from all the blowby, with all ammo I tried.
Same crown problems, worst of the bunch.
Pits in the bore near the muzzle, same as #1. Only this time, this one also had similar pits near the chamber end! Sheesh.
Same bolt problem, just as quickly.
This one had properly aligned sights/barrel, rather than being slightly rotated like the first two.
Same stock fit issue.
Extraction and ejection with this one seemed to have been worked out. I guess this one had the same replacement parts that people have been getting when phoning Savage to complain about these two problems.
Failure to feed problem did not return, still good here.
As I stated, #3 was looked after personally by the head of quality control, Greg Sage, so I don't know how it ended up being the worst of the bunch. I'd say his mind was elsewhere, as he took it upon himself to mention several times on the phone to me that he was going into surgery soon, as if he were chatting with an old buddy or something. And the rifle apparently suffered for the preoccupation. I imagine it is certainly possible that they can make nice shooting rifles for a nice price, but my three examples were all dumpster-worthy.
