A few months back a group of Savage shooters here, IIRC, were patting each other on the back about the exploits of their indiviudual rifles, and one posted that he had never seen anyone complain about a Savage.
I posted that I had bought an inaccurate Savage a couple of years ago and that it wasn't worth keeping. The first response to my post began with the words. "Oh my Gawd", IIRC.
The guy seemed to be so incensed by my comments that later on I looked back at my original post to be sure I hadn't inadvertently said, "I bought an inaccurate Savage, and I have pictures of your wife sleeping with the HS football team."
All I know is I've bought a beau coup bunch of Remington rifles in my shooting life since the mid 1970's, and I've yet to buy one attached to horror stories like you read about almost daily on the internet about them. Maybe I've just been overly lucky.
I did notice in the thread about gun sales people being idiots where someone on the sales side of the counter said that most of the problems with new rifles were cockpit errors on the part of the buyers. Maybe that applies to some extent when you consider the large number of Remington rifles sold each year.
On another note, folks have complained for years about Remington rifles - and Winchester rifles too when they were in business under several different banners. But back then no one bought Savages because they weren't even a major player except in the low dollar RF rifle bracket. No doubt they have improved their image, but I really don't think they are the answer to what causes cancer and a multitude of other bad things in the world as some would like for you to believe...
And before I get comments along the lines of, "Look what happened to Winchester", let me say that poor quality alone did not kill Winchester. Labor unions put the final nails (plural) in the coffin. When Winchester closed their doors in the NE, USRAC was already owned by foreign investors who simply said, "We can't make money building rifles and subsidizing labor unions at the same time." So they closed the Hartford plant and later opened a new plant in SC where labor unions didn't have a strangle hold on them.
Today FN is back selling good quality Winchester Model 70 rifles.
-BCB