Sounds like you got one of the short throat savages. Send it back. FGMM 168 ammo is the standard by which accuracy is judged when it comes to savage rifles and there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't be able to chamber it. I'll have to look at my 168 data again, but I'm pretty sure i loaded them about .015 off the land and had an oal around 2.810.
My current go to load is the 155 scenar under 45.1gr varget and i am loading them to 2.820 which is about .008 off the lands.