Been sitting back watching this thread wondering if I should jump in the pond. To myself, this is a hugely interesting topic because there is a massive amount of rifle manufacturing history going into the OP's question. READER Warning: All accurate credits go to Mule Deer himself and inaccurate interpretations are on me.
I asked John Barsness a very similar question revolving around a test he conducted with a Weatherby Vanguard and an RAR some months ago. This lead to discussing the designs of different bolt action receivers.
This is what I remember from the school of Mule Deer about bolt actions. What John said above is the same he told me. If you don't have the rifles in hand, Google the exploded views of all of them and compare each receiver and where the recoil lug is positioned and think of the machining process that went into each one, as well as the action screw positions into the receiver.
The Nosler M48, Howa/Vanguard, Weatherby Mark V all have that similar recoil lug that are machined as one with the receiver action. The front action screw goes directly up into the lug itself. This is a very old design that has roots going back to the Mauser 98, Springfield 1903, Enfield 1917, Arisaka, and Winchester model 54. The big split in design, engineering and machining came with the Remington 700 in having the lug positioned alone by itself between the barrel and receiver, with All the receiver screws going up into just the receiver itself. That design is found in RAR's and Savages.
Winchester model 70 even though they stayed with the older design for machining the receiver/lug as one, the company moved the front action screw behind the recoil lug and not straight up into it. Ruger M77's angled their front action screw up into the slanted recoil lug (it's not straight up and down like found in the M48, Howa/Vanguard, and Mark V).
Like John was talking about in bedding these different actions; it is important to remember where the forces are enacted on by the receiver screws and recoil forces placed on those lugs, as well as, the barrel and other parts of the gun. To me and this is just my opinion; the M48, Vanguard/Howa (which I have owned) and the Mark V are rock solid receivers and they are shooters. The one thing I couldn't get past my Vanguard was that the front action screw pulls double duty, not only being apart of holding the stock to the receiver but also directly going though the recoil process being one with the lug. Good, bad, indifferent; I honestly don't know. But it is interesting to think about.
