Now if you could find a way to make one run with less effort it could be pretty good. But I bet a clicker in a straight pull would be pretty nasty. The extraction cam on a standard 2 lug bat for example has a lot of mechanical advantage. But Im no expert on straight pulls.
IME, primary extraction is the main weakness in straight-pulls, whether traditional (Mannlicher, Ross, or Schmidt service rifles) or modern UK-legal straight-pulls based on semi-auto rifles, primarily AR-15 or 10, more recently US manufactured LMT jobs. The AR-15s in 223 and 6.8SPC (and I'm told by aficionados, the 22 Valkyrie) work really well as long as they stick to such smaller case cartridges and keep pressures down. I had a UK built AR-15 in 223 and I could tell pretty well just what pressure level my handloads were running at according to how easily you could start the bolt moving. Up to around the levels that QuickLOAD said produced 52-54,000 psi, it was a really easy / sweet operator. Then as pressures rose, so did the effort needed. The CSR people used to shoot a lot of 5.56X45mm BAe RO Radway Green SS109 pattern stuff, but when I tried a couple of cartons, it was really hard work opening the bolt even with a great big side mounted operating handle bolted onto the bolt carrier body. It was a fantastically good shooter for a basically military rifle, albeit with a heavy Lilja stainless match barrel. I was disappointed with any load that couldn't make half-MOA with five shots loaded with the 80gn SMK at 100 yards, and had a good few individual third inch groups, a quarter or less not so commonly. I even shot it at 1,000 in the early days of F-Class when it was still big targets, although the butts crew more often than not failed to pull the target as the bullet was subsonic by then and the tiny holes didn't show up clearly. The straight pull ARs are exactly that as you only pull, chambering done as on the gas powered version by the recoil spring. The old military jobs are really pull-push, being manual both ways, as is the Savage, and much as I enjoyed shooting them, I always thought they were a bit 'clunky' compared to the best of the turnbolt actions. You can't shoot the 303 Ross for instance nearly as fast as you can a really smooth SMLE shooting the same cartridge. You'd regularly see Schmidt users banging the bolt knob with the heel of the hand to ensure full lock-up on chambering a round. That was with handloads with well used brass anyway - genuine modern RUAG made GP11 7.5X55 chambers more easily
For the modern straight-pulls there are modifications that introduce primary extraction through the bolt handle swivelling through an arc against the bolt and this pulling the case a little out of the chamber before it hits a stop and becomes a non-cam backwards pull on the the bolt. The German Blaser rifles have this. I believe the Savage has such a mechanism, but to be honest, I've not given it much attention. Traditionally, straight-pull sporting rifles never become main market, and many designs don't survive that long at all. Their USPs are often as in the Blaser R-series straight pull through facilitating quick DIY barrel change, so six factory barrels / cartridges for six purposes on one stock and action.
We'll just have to see with the Savage, and now the company has introduced a pricey chassis stock 'PRS model'. By the time that Savage rifles reach the UK, they've become very expensive indeed, especially the fancier / nicer models. Not at all like the early days of the LRPVs and F-Class, FTR, BR, Palma etc rifles using the PTA action. We have lots in use in FTR for instance in the UK, but very few of them bought recently, and most now on their second or even third barrel usually threaded and headspaced up the traditional way without the barrel nut.
