Over the last year, I have purchased a number of "budget" priced bolt action rifles including several Savages and one Ruger American (Ranch Rifle). I have also own a number of bolt action rifles from Remington, Winchester, Tikka................................ FWIW
This all started when I went to buy a chassis rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor. I am a target shooter and have almost no interest in hunting. A couple of my friends took me to a couple ranges where you can shoot out to 1000 yards and another range where you can shoot out to 1200 yards and this looked like something I wanted to get into. So, I started shopping for a new rifle. When I got to the store, I saw that they had a Savage Model 10FCP-SR rifle on sale for $499. I had heard that Savage rifles had very good out of the box accuracy but I had never owned one and the price was a fraction of what I originally intended to spend, so I decided try one instead of getting a chassis rifle and spending a lot more money. I was very impressed with it. The first time I shot it at 1200 yards, I hit the plate (24"x24" plate) five times in a row. I have fired at least one 3/4" group at 200 yards with this rifle.
Since then I bought two more Savages and traded for another one. The two I bought are still on backorder from Cabelas but the one I traded for is in .308 and shoots very decently: I have tried two different bullets and three different powders, trying five different loads of each powder and EVERY single group I have fired at 100 yards was under an inch. That is essentially 30 different powder/bullet combinations all under an inch. The best loads shot 1/2".
I also like the fact that with a Savage, you can change your own barrel after buying a barrel vice, a wrench, and headspace gauges. So, if you want a higher end barrel, you can do the barrel swap yourself. If you shoot out your barrel, you can install a new barrel yourself. Or, even if you want to change calibers you can install a new barrel yourself as well as change bolt heads yourself.
I also like the fact that the bolt head is floating.
The Ruger American I bought is in .300 AAC Blackout, so not something you are going to use for long range precision shooting, but with careful handloads I have shot sub-3" groups at 200 yards using SUBSONICS. The load I ended up as "my" load for a supersonic load is the 125 grains Sierra MatchKing which shoots right around an inch at 100 yards. So, I am more than happy with the Ruger Ranch Rifle also.
There are a lot of really good shooting, inexpensive rifles out there right now. We may be living in the golden age of rifles. They may not look like the rifles of 75 years ago with all the plastic and sprayed on metal finishes, but they shoot better than the rifles of 75 years ago.
"I want, regular ol 3/4/5 shot bolt gun, not one of these new "precision" bolt guns that looks all tacticool"
If we are both talking about the same thing, the purpose of those rifles is not to "look tacticool" but to provide a rigid stock that doesn't flex along with aluminum bedding blocks. Those stocks also allow you to change out the buttstock to suit your preference and some of them also allow you to change out the foreend to suit your needs (shape of the foreend for shooting off bags, or lighter weight, or adding a rail for bipod mounting or whatever..........) they are customizable. It isn't about looks.