My last 2 Savages have been just like yours, one is my BVSS (in 22-250), which I re barreled with a McGowen, and my daughter's lefty weather warrior (in 243). Both look like they were machined with an axe. My buddy's 204 had a very pronounced bad spot that started about 6 inches from the muzzle and went all the way to the muzzle. It now wears a McGowen bbl as well. I don't know what's going on over at Savage, but something has definitely changed with their barrel process.

My BVSS was very accurate for 5 shots, fairly accurate for the next 10 shots, so-so accurate for another 5 shots, then out the window shooting shotgun patterns from there on. It would take me hours to scrub all the fouling out with JB's bore paste. Butch's bore shine or Shooters Choice wouldn't even touch it. I grew to hate that rifle and stopped shooting it. I finally bit the bullet and bought a McGowen bbl from Northland. Now it's a "proper" rifle again. I can easily shoot 30-50 rounds between swabbing without any accuracy issues, and 2 or 3 wet patches with Butch's and it's clean again and ready to go.

My daughter's weather warrior is probably the roughest barrel I've ever seen in my life (and that's saying a lot, I've looked through a lot of barrels). I can't believe that a modern manufacturer is putting these barrels out as a finished product. This one is bad, really bad. Now that her Javelina hunt is past, it's coming off, and I have a Sinarms 257 Roberts barrel sitting here ready to go on.

The strange thing is my Stevens 223 was bought between the BVSS and the weather warrior, and the barrel on it is "normal"?

I have talked to other Savage owners, both online, and at the range I regularly shoot at. Some of the other "regulars" also shoot Savages. I know I'm not the only one seeing these crappy barrels. I'm not at all trying to bash Savage here, but I KNOW they used to make better barrels than this...

Maybe we could run another topic with a survey of "bad" factory Savage barrels? Does someone on this forum have an ear of Savage management? Maybe we could CONSTRUCTIVELY give feedback that would be useful to getting Savage to fix the problem?

What say you Savage forum members?