I set about rebuilding this years ago. I have tried various stocks, had more than one replacement barrel, and even had to find a bolt for it. It was a 1960s rifle with a detachable magazine that was missing a few components. It came with a pencil barrel, that I thought was lighter than I wanted for what I was going to do with a 7mm Mag. I purchased a take-off varmint 7mm barrel with a brake on it years ago. Unfortunately, it was out in the garage while I was overseas and my wife assumed it was a pipe and stored it behind the dryer that was missing a vent to the outside, so I came home to find it rusted up pretty bad! I think I'm actually going to turn it and profile it into a 7mm-08 AR barrel. A few years later, I ordered a 24" E.R. Shaw heavy barrel, then threaded it and put on a Shrewd muzzle brake.

I have a Stockade stock that I got from NSS for one of my two project Savages about 15 years ago that was never right and even went back to NSS once before they said nothing was wrong with it. Stockade sounded like they were going to take care of me, but disappeared on me after I sent all the requested photos. It's a neat stock, and would be perfect, except I've tried putting three Savages in it, and the trigger only extends about 3/4" into the trigger guard, as if the stock is too thick in the action area. You can, literally, slip your finger under the trigger around to the back of the trigger guard when installed.


Eventually, I came across a Black Friday deal on an MDT chassis and gave it a try. I've talked to their engineers a few times, and they were very interested in what I was finding. The recoil lug recess is a bit short for the aftermarket recoil lugs I used to buy from NSS that were the same height as Remington 700 lugs. I didn't have my mill up and running, so I ground down the height of the NSS lug to match a factory Savage's, and it worked fine after that. The only other issue is in getting AICS pattern magazines is fitting at the back end of the magazine well. I've heard about filing away on the magazine, but didn't want to do that on my steel AI magazines, so I'm going to mill the recess back just a bit.


This MDT chassis, the weight of the rifle, and the brake make for an extremely soft-shooting rifle! My buddy had never shot 7mm Mag and said he thought it recoiled softer than his 6.8SPC AR he had just been shooting.
https://i.imgur.com/I4rBFGi.mp4