Worked on it again today. Yes, by pushing quite hard sideways I can make the AccuRelease catch the sear. Quite sure I have never pushed the AccuRelease that far off center when shooting for real. I also was really really rough closing the bolt, and I could occasionally get the AccuRelease to lock up. But again it was obvious it was locked up, and this is not the way it goes click while not firing.
Then looked at the safety. It is a three position device which allows nothing, no bolt movement, or firing in the full safe. In the half safe it allow bolt action, but not firing. In both of these positions I believe the trigger mechanism is physically blocked and you can't move the trigger. The sear stays in place no matter how hard you pull. In the fire position, it fires normally.
What I learned was that in the mid position, you can't get any click or trigger movement, so that is not the mode it is in when I get the click and no fire. If it is the safety, then it must be going into some other half way position between mid and full off. The block does slide further to full off and springs back some, so it may be possible. I found some plumbers putty in various places from the bedding job I did, and cleaned that out. So I'm hoping that it may stay in the full fire position more reliably now, but I did not get that "ah ha" moment, saying that was it.
Savage uses a little spring that sits in three recesses machined in the safety block, to hold it in each of the three positions. It almost seems the full fire position recess is a little short of where it should be, and the recess pulls the block back some from the maximum travel position. That might be the root of the issue...
