Savage/Steven’s bolt body

[mnbogboy2]

My question then would be, how do places like ptg or sharpshooter supply make bolt bodies that are the correct length for each individual action without having to measure it?

If I am correct the bolt worked smoothly after you loosened the BAS. That tells me that the rear baffle (primary extracion) "bound up" the bolt assembly in the action.
Because it only takes a few seconds my first impulse would be to just try and change the rear baffles because they vary a lot .010 to .015 on a couple I just measured. But because bolt handles also vary so much also this might open up a new can of worms with primary extraction problems. Also just interchanging the complete bolts most likely will cause a need to re-headspace.

If it were me with this problem, I would diassasemble both bolts and measure both bolt bodies.
They should be comparable in length (say within .005). I went out and measured three Savage LA bolt bodies one was over 30 years old 5.990, 5.991, and 5.889 not including the bolt handle stop tabs.
If the measurement was "real close" then I would switch out only the bolt bodies.

A more important measurement is the "cross pin" hole to the bolt handle end should be close to 5.697-5.703 on the LA (at least on the couple I measured). The actual Savage print should be close to this but who has seen it?

You have a short action so these LA numbers are only to show a comparitive tolerance.
As sharpshooter said; "With a tolerance stack up, there are no guarantees that it will fit proper in another rifle."

Then I would re-check the firing pin protrusion and reassemble each bolt.
After that I would then try each bolt with and without an empty brass.
If each bolt opened and closed smoothly I would then re-check the headspace with go & no go gauges. (my no go gauge is .002"-.004" of Scotch tape on the go gauge). The headspace should theoretically be the same as original because each bolt head matches the original barrel & action.

Down fall would be that the differences between recievers may affect the primary extraction. You probably won't know until you fire the rifle. Most likely it won't (but life is full of surprises).
If either action was customized the cocking ramp within the bolt may have been polished or otherwise altered. This again is one of the things that may change (change in cocking force).

My .02,
Randy