Two POTENTIAL problems...
#1:
My son has a new Savage 10FP-HS Precision which we've only taken to the range once. When he let me fire it, I experienced the following "problem" (I use quotes because I don't know if this is a malfunction, or a design feature...). I cycled the bolt foward and closed it, with a vigorous and positive motion, exactly as I would normally do on my Remington 700 or my Ruger M77 MkII. I did not "slam" the bolt closed. The motion was smooth, but firm. When I did this, the Savage trigger was frozen in place. It could not be pulled. It was all the way forward, just like a normally cocked trigger would be, but no amount of pull would move it - including that it would not move the AccuRelease "blade" on the front of the trigger. The whole thing was frozen in place. It took cycling the bolt again, more slowly and gently, to "release" the trigger and get it to fire. This happened to me twice in a row. OTH, my son did not experience this problem. However, in my view, this is not acceptable. I am careful with rifles, and I didn't do anything which, on the surface, would cause it to lock up like that. In my opinion, this is not acceptable, particularly in what is supposed to be a tactical rifle.
#2:
There is a very noticeable gap on the Savage between the bolt body and the interior dimension of the receiver. This gap exposes the top cartridge in the box magazine to direct view with the bolt body closed in battery. See picture below (and please excuse the dust all over the lense). The top half of the picture is my Remington VSF LH, bolt closed. The bottom half is the Savage 10FP-HS Precision. The red object you can see inside the Savage receiver beneath the bold body is a dummy .308 cartridge. I would be very hesitant to use a rifle with an action like that in a dirty, wet, or dusty environment. I would be afraid of too much dirt and mung getting into the action and compromising the bolt cycling or marring the metal surfaces. The Remington action, in contrast, is locked up tight and far less likely to allow debris into the receiver. Again, in my opinion, this gap in the Savage action is not acceptable, particularly in an $800.00 rifle, which is what he paid for it.
I don't have the heart to dump all this on my son. He is only 17 years old, and he loves his new rifle. And truthfully, when it does go bang, it puts rounds into a tiny group. But being a kid, he so badly wanted the "bad ass" look of a tactical rifle that he overlooked the quality of manufacture issue. I tried to point it out to him at the time, but he wasn't having any of it. My Remington 700 VSF was only $31 more, and it is MUCH better put together, but he just had to have the black rifle.