Originally Posted By: Al HansenIf you rebarrel your bolt face will dictate what caliber you can rebarrel with.
Not really - the Savage boltheads are rather affordable. There are other factors, shank size, mag box/follower, but the Savages are pretty easily swapped around...
Of course, the problem then becomes economical - if I swap a barrel, bolthead, mag box, follower, and stock on a Savage 12FV, I'll be somewhere more than $700 into a $220 rifle. I can appreciate a lot of guys paid $400 for theirs, and if that gloss blued finish FV is worth $100-180 to you over a matte finish FCV, great... But a guy can buy a lot of rifle for the cost it takes to rebuild the Savages. If that's your intent, great, I do it myself, but "rebuild it" is a pretty expensive and complicated answer to the question, "I have a rifle I don't use, how much is it worth?" A guy can resell it for $200ish, because a bolt action Savage is worth $200 and the sale is over, and considering a $400 NEW bolt action will be $300-350 used, you're talking about losing $100-150... Alternatively, a guy could SPEND $700+ and be $1100 into the rig, which is only worth $400-500ish... So now we're talking about a value loss around $600... Sell the dumb thing...