[dahermit]

While everyone is correct about high pressure being one culprit in the bolt being hard to open, there is one other thing to look for on the Savage. The front action screw. The front action screw can bind against the locking lugs on the bolt, making "hard opening" a problem.

Recently, my Savage .30-06 started exhibiting the same problem, and I went though all the drills trying to figure out what the problem might be. The ammo I was using was standard pressure ammo, the rifle has never caused me any problems. the bolt was extremely stiff on opening and closing. I cleaned everything and couldn't isolate the problem. I finally took the rifle to my gunsmith, who looked at it for several hours, then noticed that the front action screw seemed to bind when the bolt is operated. He took two threads off, and voila! Problem solved.

Loosen your front action screw and see if the binding goes away. If so, you need to grind a couple of threads off that screw.

Excellent information. Sometimes there is a wild card in play that would be over looked.