Here's an update. My trip to the gunsmith 3 hours away was more than worth the time. The bolt needed extensive work, he was very dismayed to see the poor quality in the bolt. He polished every moving part and made a bushing to help compress the hammer spring. He also found that the headspace was bad so he reset that. The way to test for bad headspace on a rimfire is to set a fired case on a flat surface to see if it rocks at all. That rocking indicates a bulged base. Cases fired in my rife were visibly bulged. He pulled the barrel and reset the headspace and now fired cases are perfectly flat.

He also worked on the trigger. I had installed a Savage target spring that I had gotten from Gun Shack. He polished the moving parts including the sear and set the trigger at about 14 oz. It works perfectly.

This guy was a Savage gunsmith when Savage used remote smiths to repair firearms. He worked on my rifle for several HOURS and did not charge me ONE DIME! He said he will get it out of Savage. Needless to say he is not happy with Savage quality control on their rimfire rifles.

Now, I expect that I will be happy with this rifle for many years to come.

BTW, back to the comment by FOXX, I hope you did not intend to mean that just because these rifles cost less than $600 it should be expected that they are less than perfect. That is baloney. Not trying to pick a fight, just stating my opinion. My money is valuable and I expect a new weapon to work no matter what I pay for it.