It's a never ending battle of "one size does not fit all" between Savage Shooters and the others. I got interested in precision shooting after hanging with my nephew who picked it up in the Marines. He's got some seriously nice guns and optics as does my brother (Dr. married to a Dr. and a lot of expendable income) who basically *has* to have the best of the best when it comes to optics, firearms, and electronics.
I have small money and started with a Savage 10 FCP-SR in 6.5 CM after shooting Remingotn 700's, Les Baer's, Tikka's, and the like with NF, Vortex, S&B optics belonging to my gun buddies and relatives. And at the end of the first year I can hit as well and sometimes better than they can at 600+ yards shooting side by side. I have experienced none of the alleged failures to feed and extract that some other people have been plagued with using Savages. I certainly do like my brothers custom rifle with Top end Vortex glass better than my Savage with bottom end Vortex Crossfire II glass (replaced with an Athlon Argos BTR) *but* I do not shoot his $10K setup any better than I shoot my $2K rig *and* my brother actually shoots as good/better with my rig than he does with his. He is not happy about that but he has a compulsive need to have high end stuff and is OK with that.
The weak link is the shooter - not the gun unless the gun is broken in which case it can be fixed usually.
There's nothing wrong with Savages unless you get one that won't feed/extract and in that case it can be fixed/upgraded. I'm pretty sure that when I shoot the barrel out of my Savage 10 I'll upgrade with a better barrel and keep on running it. That makes me foolish to some folks and I'm OK with that becasue when we all get to the range and start smacking steel I'm right in there with the big kids.
VooDoo