I've never been a Savage fan. I've seen plenty of them that shoot well, but I've never been able to warm up to them. I hate the "combination bolt stop / sear" concept. I detest their trigger geometry. I don't like the jiggly rear baffle thingy whose function could be duplicated by just using a good bolt shroud design. The whole rifle was designed for ease of manufacturing and low retail price. However, as much as it pains me to say it, I have to admit, they do make a decent factory tube, specifically on their heavy profile varmint rigs.
I can think of one application where I think they are actually a pretty good choice: prairie rat extermination.
I like to shoot pd's a couple times a year in late spring. The places I shoot in NM have pretty large pd towns such that I can setup a bench in the morning and shoot all day long without moving from a fixed location. On a good weekend at my best honey holes, I'll burn up 2500 - 3000 rounds. Barrels get a bit toasty when the action is at its peak, and it doesn't take too many such trips before significant throat erosion develops. Savage's varmint rigs are great for this purpose because they're the least expensive to rebarrel and you don't have much $ tied up in the whole rig. So you're less concerned about abusing them when you really have to keep the brass flying to fight back an organized offensive of vicious, toothy rodents.
