Before I bought the BVSS I looked at Savage's site for a while. Somewhere in there they specify that their 'target' rifles will do less than 1MOA and the 'standard' rifles will do less than 1.5MOA. They also listed the ammo they use for testing. The .308 target load was Federal GMM with 168gn MK bullets. Don't recall what others were.

Right now my cheap Axis II HB in .223 will outshoot my BVSS. But, the BVSS is getting better as I work on the bore. I think the stainless barrel is just taking a lot longer to get smoothed out.

Every barrel is different and will take a little different process to get better groups. The cheap Axis barrel required no special treatment at all, and cleaning it does not seem to do much. It has never been treated to bore paste and only had copper remover used in it once. The BVSS has needed both. Maybe the stainless barrel is tougher so is taking more to get it smoothed up?

Last, I would not compare the factory barrels to a custom. That Shilen barrel was probably hand lapped to final dimensions, the Savage was not. So it is up to you to do the final 'finishing'. My Axis (carbon steel barrel) took about 200 rounds before it started shooting sub MOA on a regular basis. The BVSS has taken about 300 rounds to get below MOA on a regular basis. It is still not a .5 MOA rifle.

PS there is always the possibility that you have a bad barrel. You can call Savage and ask.