It never occurred to me in the early years of rifle shooting. I think most of us just tightened action screws "farmer tight". In more recent years many of us have adopted torque specs.
After reading an article on Accurate Shooter website, I began to tune my rifles. As a general rule I will begin with 35 rear and 40 front and go up from there. My pillar bedded 300 RUM likes 50 in/lb front and rear but all the others like a bit less. 40 rear/45 front is most common.
https://www.accurateshooter.com/technical-articles/savage-action-screw-torque-tuning/
