Never found the 2 groove to be too uncommon, but am sure Savage used various types of rifling.
Hunted my last 2-groove .303 specifically as a cast bullet shooter, which it did quite well... the land-to-lad diameter is a bit tighter, and a nicer fit for many of the mold's bore riding section. If i were to hunt up another iron-sight cast bullet military shooter, would probably hunt up another 2-groove .303.
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Without the butt socket, there isn't any real recoil lug, so keeping the metal in the wood isn't going to be all that easy.
Seems there was this short time period where everyone and their momma wanted to put those old Brit rifles in one-piece stocks. Can be done, but it's more work than it looks like.
Haven't aclue why the mag. was cut to 7 rounds... may not be up on 50 year old state laws, and there may have been some place or other that required that limit for hunting. 5-rounds was a more common limit. May be as simple as the owner just screwed up his measurements and ended up with a 7-shot, or that the mag. was damaged in some way and all he could salvage was the 7-round stump.