The thread title is, I guess what I'm trying to ask - for those of you who did builds, did you start with a donor action in the desired bolt or are there custom options out there?

To back up a little though, lemme start by saying I'm a newby. Bought my first rifle (Model 16 in .223) a year ago and really enjoy it. I've been looking at buying another short action rifle and became intrigued with the 6.5 mm caliber, particularly 6.5x47 Lapua and .260 Rem. 6.5 mm Creedmore could be in the running too, if Lapua brass starts to flow in sufficient quantities as to be readily available in Canada.

Around the time I started to be drawn in to the 6.5 mm discussion, chassis systems started to catch my eye - the MDT LSS-XL in particular, which comes in Savage-specific versions. I quickly realized that bare Savage actions aren't something you can just walk up and buy off the shelf, so began to consider the 'donor action' approach - find a used short action rifle, sell off the unwanted parts (if possible) and start building off the action. I started coming across threads (not necessarily about Savage actions specifically) that discussed this & pointed out that the donor rifle approach followed by the costs of truing puts you into the price range of custom actions. This got me to wondering if there's even such a thing as a custom Savage short action? Does this exist?