Savage barrel on marlin xs7 action

[Striper Slayer]

My son wants to rebarrel his marlin xs7 25-06 to 280ai. Can he use a savage prefit? We tried to put a savage 260 barrel I had laying around on it just to see if everything worked, but the bolt hit the barrel face before we could get proper headspacing.
I have found lots of stuff online saying it will work, lots of stuff saying it won't work. Also saw something that said the rem 783 prefits are exactly what you need for the marlin.
Does anyone have any actual experience with the marlin action and prefit barrels?
Does anyone make a bolt head for the marlin action that has the same depth dimensions as the savage?
What's going to be the easiest way to do this, and do it right?
Thanks for your insight and knowledge.

 

[Ggmac]

Marlin = rem 783 all but receiver screw spacing , same bolt head , trigger etc .
The barrels chamber depth is different , because most , most Marlin /rem 783 bolt nose depth is different than the savage . Some will interchange ( savage barrels ) some will not . It all depends on how deep they cut the chamber . Go to no go specs are usually .003

 

[alphapygmy]

The bolt face is usually a little deeper on the Marlins so they may or may not give proper clearance to the bolt face depending how close to the edge of tolerance they are. I recently put a Criterion Savage 30-06 on a Marlin XL7. The clearance from the barrel breech to bolt face was only about .003 so I faced off enough to get a ~.010 clearance. Everything else fit up. Shoots great now.