Sounds like the same problem my brother in law had.He asked for a refund and they said they don't do that.I purchased a savage a22 from Walmart at the end of last year. This is a semi-auto 22 in a laminate varmint thumbhole stock fluted barrel. Whether they fired it or not for function, it would not hit a 2-ft target at 100 yd. 2 ft right one foot left 2 ft high.
I sent it back to Savage a little over 90 days ago. I hadn't heard anything so I emailed them about it and they said they were out of stock on barrels. The barrel needed to be replaced. So I'm hoping to get that back someday. They're standing behind it, but if they would have even tried to shoot it at 100 yards they would have realized there was a problem.
If they would have shot it at 25 yards they would have realized it was printing 8 in or so.
Still waiting.High end Savage rifles may be a different story,not sure.