Most people have been telling me to go with the savage, but what's with the stevens rifles. I'm having a hard time piecing together what people are talking about. Are they a model made by savage or do they just have similar parts? Are they easy to build a custom gun from?
To make this easy, the Stevens is the Camero and the Savage is the Corvette, but both are built by the same company. The Stevens is a great gun to start with because they are cheap and all the after market parts that you can use to upgrade a Savage you can use on the Stevens.
Guys are finding the Stevens action to be a great donor action for custom builds. You can buy a whole rifle for a price of the Savage target action alone. So if you want to do a budget build you should buy the Stevens. If you want to start with something that requires pulling it out of the box and putting a scope on it to shoot, you buy the Savage. The Stevens will work out of the box, but you will need to do some trigger work and maybe bed the stock if you don't want to restock it. You can buy a Choate that will allow for an inexpensive stock that will do wonders for recoil and accuracy.
To make the Stevens a real shooter, one would do a recoil lug, new trigger, and bedding. The Savage with the accu-stock and accu-trigger solve this dilemma. Plus their other models especially the tactical and varmint models use pillar bedding and the accu-trigger. So it is really what you want to do with it. Build and shoot, or buy it and shoot?
I like the idea of building so that is always an option for me. I guess it boils down to how lazy I want to be.

I must say, I have been very happy with my Mod 12 Low Profile varmint model in 300WSM. I couldn't ask for a better set up short of a custom rig.
Tank