A heavy barrel gets you range time. If its hunting, lighter is fine.

Shorter does not help that as the barrel heats up with the narrow taper.

I don't understand the threading part, not a Savage barrel?

Contour wise you shorten up a Varmint barrel (Savage is a very heavy one) and its a Bull at 17 inch pretty much as the taper is still low.

Really depends on what you want to do with it.

If you are talking about cutting it down from the chamber end I gather that is not a good idea.