I gotta make sure I answer all of these one at a time:
the base model is not tapped as far as I can recall, but it does come with sights(mine is a bare barell).
It is more of a matte stainless (I' m at work so thats the best I can recall off the top of my head.)
Sorry, the Rem. is an autoloader (I was originally looking at that or a 10/22 but the price was just too high so that' s how I found the Savage)
No problems with the mag. release on my end. It' s not sharp so I' m not sure how they did that. It was a little stiff from the start (new out of the box) but it' s great now. I figured better to be stiff then loose and drop clips.
One word of advice....get 1 or 2 extra clips, their pretty cheap (now) and it' s always impossible getting one for a good price 10 years down the road, when you lose your one and only. Let me know how it goes. JDinAB