If I may suggest a fundamental difference in view.
To an American, it seems quite ordinary to buy a new Harley-Davidson, or a new Remington, and immediately throw half of it away and replace those elements with after-market alternatives.
Everyone else in the world expects to buy a properly functioning motorcycle, or rifle, ab initio.
In my own experience, I bought a Dakota model 10 (the single shot, falling block variant) as a barrelled action 'in the white'. For what is supposed to be a premium rifle, it is badly designed - the firing pin will break if the rifle is dry-fired - and the quality of finish was dreadful - the chequering on the safety catch looked as though someone had applied it with a broken rasp (that, at least, was salvageable). I am afraid that it has badly put me off buying American rifles: there had been no quality control and no pride in assembling and shipping out a mediocre product.
On the other hand, I had a second-hard Ruger M77 which functioned very well, until it suddenly went on strike and refused to hold a zero. I don't complain about that: it was a cheap rifle, it worked well until it didn't, at which point it was time to get rid of it.
Americans have the inestimable advantage of the 2d. amendment, which allows them to build up - at least by European standards - vast armouries. We down-trodden serfs of our own governments are only allowed a few rifles at most and - particularly with big bore rifles - might even have a legal prohibition on firing them in our own countries. It does, however, mean that rather than spending our money buying half-a-dozen rifles of dubious quality we tend to be a bit more discriminating.
An additional problem is that 'gunsmithing' these days often means little more than the ability to unscrew one part and screw in another.
I'll bet the Savage will be a shooter.
