Two things to ponder...

1. When none of the major aftermarket barrel makers want to make a 338 LM barrel for a Savage it should tell you something.
2. When Jerry Stiller (Stiller Precision) insists that the Savage 110 design does not have the surface area on the locking lugs to stand up to and adequately distribute the rearward bolt thrust created by the 338 LM, you should probably listen.

This idea that Savage somehow beefed up their standard action for the 338 LM is complete hogwash. All they did was make the locking lugs on the bolt head thicker, thus increasing the sheer strength of the lugs. This minor change did nothing to increase the thrust surface area of the lugs where they contact the action to better distribute that energy to the action, which is the real issue presented by the 338 LM. As a result lug setback becomes an issue which ultimately will lead to excessive headspace.

Savage would have to do one of two things to have an action that would adequately and properly handle the 338 LM.

Option 1: Increase the O.D. of the action to a minimum of 1.35" (sound familiar?) to allow the locking lugs to be a larger diameter and thus increase their thrust surface area. Jerry Stiller is the one who did the math and came up with that dimension for a 2-lug/90-degree action.

Option 2: Create an all new action using a 3-lug/60-degree design to get the additional thrust surface area on the lugs.

So in other words, Savage just did a band-aid fix to allow the 110 design to questionably handle the 338 LM. That's what happens when you have engineers designing guns who have a piece of paper from a fancy school that says they're smart but have little to no practical experience with guns or gunsmithing.