Top loading mag on savage 111

I love shooting savages, and I previously owned a 7mm with a top loading magazine that was much easier to load than my .270 I recently bought. Was my 7mm a single stack magazine or stagger feed? Sorry I don't know much about this. But is there anything I can do to the magazine to make it easier to load? It is just a pain!

Sounds like your early Savage was stagger feed and the new gun is centerfeed. As posted elsewhere here, the staggerfeed mag is attached to the action. The centerfeed is attached to the stock.