Because I was young and did not not any better. It was my first hunting rifle, a Savage 110 in .243 with a very fancy Simmons scope. I did research on the Internet and skipped over the posts of people talking bad about Savages and I would feast on the posts about how great Savage was. I was also told by a very "knowledgeable" young Academy employee that worked on the hunting department that Savage was better than Remington, so I was very happy, but I disliked the older employee that disagreed with him. I loved my Savage, I always kept it in a padded case and it was always nicely oiled.
The problem started when I bough my first four door truck, I would lay my beloved Savage on the backseat over a blanket and no longer in a padded case when I would go hunting. The action would rattle like crazy and would drive me crazy to hear it for two hours on the way to the lease. I had to travel with the bolt out of the action and wrapped separately.
My second gun was a Remington .264 Magnum SS. Although an "inferior" action, it felt tighter and did not rattle! It also did not have this ugly thing called a barrel nut on it. I was now confused.
I had my .264 re-barreled to a .300 Win. Mag. and had a McMillan stock put on it. It came back from Gunsmith glass bedded and it shot amazingly.
My third rifle was another Remington, a 7mm-08 LVSF. I was now confused again because this rifle had a much shorter and handier action than the Savage but cartridge length was the same. After seeing the results of bedding the action on my .300 WM, I decided to bed and swap out triggers on my LVSF. My gunsmith taught me to bed rifles when he did my .300 WM so I decided to do it myself. After a weekend, my 7mm-08 was shooting much better and life was good.
So, I though, I'll bed my beloved Savage. The gunsmith refused to work on it, so again my feelings were hurt, so I decided to do it myself. When I removed the trigger was when I started having a change of heart, and even worse when I had to put it back! What a POS!!!! It took me hours to put this thing back together, and even after purchasing an aftermarket trigger and after all that work, it was still a POS trigger compared to the Remington. I had very little money back then and really could not afford to waste any of it, and I started to get that very nasty feeling about my Savage when I realized it was a waste of money. But I loved that rifle, and maybe it was just me, so I had it rebarreled to 22-250 AI and I installed a nice laminated stock on it. Well, because of the unecessary long action, the 22-250 AI would not feed real good, and after more frustration, I decided to sell it.
Selling it was my last frustration with my SaLvage. I could not give that stupid thing away. Even the guy that told me how great they were only offered me about $300.00 for a gun that I had three times the money on! WTH???!!!! Where are all those Savage lovers now I wondered! Well, I finally sold it for about $400.00 and realized that I could not "afford" to own any more SaLvages.
Now life is a little easier money wise, so I by custom actions but I still have some Remington. So, if you are a new shooter and you are on a budget, you can't afford to buy a Savage. True story.
Picked up a Savage 1110V in .223 with a heavy barrel so it had to be a good varmint killer?? :
