Originally Posted by
J.Baker
The reason for that is because of liability concerns. We're dealing with fire control parts here that have production tolerances that may or may not require some fitting for your particular rifle, and they don't have a clue if you know what the heck you're doing or not when it comes to working on guns.
Everyone has this goofy impression that Savage parts are like lego's and you can just put any old pieces together and mix and match however you like. In theory yes, but what you don't realize is that most of the small parts are only QC checked during final assembly. In other words, they grab a part out of the bin and install it. If it works, great. If not, they take it off and grab another part out of the bin and try it until they get one that works with that particular gun. They grab the next gun and try that previous part on it that didn't work in the last gun. If it works, great. If not, they grab another one. If a given part fails to work in a consecutive number of guns it gets set aside as a reject and what Savage does with those who knows - could go right back into parts inventory and possibly get plucked out for a customer's replacement part order for all I know.
It is for this very reason that Savage will only sell certain parts to a gunsmith. That gunsmith (presumably) has the knowledge and experience to check and verify the part fits and works properly before returning the firearm to the customer. The customer generally doesn't have that knowledge and experience to catch a possible issue because they simply don't know what to look for or know how it should fit and function. As a licensed gunsmith performing the installation, the liability shifts to them should something bad happen.
Just because it's an inconvenience to you or anyone else doesn't make it a stupid policy.
I've personally seen probably a half dozen bolt bodies that were anywhere from 0.010 to 0.035" shorter than what they should be. Now imagine in one of those was sent out to a customer who didn't know enough to compare the length to their old one or check the barrel headspace after assembling it into their rifle. Most likely it would result in a case head separation due to the excessive headspace the first time they tried to fire a live round. Now that person's on the phone with a lawyer making plans to sue Savage for selling him/her defective parts.