How to bed a rifle.

[Don Fischer]

I don't believe every barreled action and every aluminum bedding block are made to fit perfectly. Some may be awfully close and not benefit from bedding while other's could use the bedding. If manufacturer's can't get every stock, wood or otherwise perfect for the barreled action going into it, how do they manage to do so with bedding blocks?

[Don Fischer]

I have used commercial bedding compound, clear epoxy and J.B. Weld. My favorite and go to anymore is J.B.Weld. But I don't recall ever having any bedding compound break down on me. Accua Glass I tried many years ago, never figured out how anyone could use that runny stuff. Then it came out in gel and that had to be better but I was already into J.B. Weld by then and I'm not changing.

I am not convinced pillars by themselves are all that great. But if you pillar bedded and then glass bedded the action surface around the pillar, my guess is it would be super! The pillar would ensure the wood under it all never compressed and the glass would support the whole area around the pillar. Unfortunately for me I've never figured out how to do the pillar system. Keep wanting to try and make some with copper tubing but never convinced myself I can do it alright. Need an old seldom used inexpensive gun to try it on. Have though a lot about trying it on my Mossberg Patriot. Thinking the pillar and J.B. Weld would support that plastic trigger guard.

[cw308]

I used the Devco steel from Brownells , it's pricey but it worked well . I bedded my Remaining 700 in the HS Precision aluminum block stock , would always see rub marks and I wanted a Rock solid base . I watched videos , read up on and decided to give it a try . Just be careful not to go above the half way point on the circumference or it's not comming out , it's bedded for life . Do all the homework and it will work out fine . The hard part is waiting , will it release from the stock ? We always want to improve things . I also bedded my CZ 452 Varmint 22 lr. With that barrel screw , also worked well . Hey , if it doesn't , another excuse to buy a new toy . Go for it .

Chris

[dakota.potts]

Marine Tex is one of the best bedding agents I have ever used and all that was used when I was working professionally. If you rub release agent (Johnson's Paste Wax) into the metal with a polishing cloth, the bedding comes out smooth and shiny like glass. I have also known some to do great things with Devcon.

Most modern rifles are bedded tang to recoil lug. Commonly, the action screw holes are drilled out and aluminum pillars embedded as well. The chamber area of a barrel may be done. I can see the argument for bedding the entire length from receiver to the end of the barrel channel but I can also see bedding the barrel being really problematic if everything is not perfect and even, as the stresses will try to go somewhere and a free-floated barrel gives an avenue for energy to travel and then return to a consistent static state.

Aluminum chassis and bedding blocks are great but as pointed out above, won't have perfect content. Many are cut on a CNC machine and will have a series of steps left from milling cutters. If you torque a receiver down to this, you're torquing a steel contact surface onto many very thin high points on a softer metal (aluminum). Will the torque and the stress from firing cause the hardened steel to wear on these high points and cause a gradual shift? I can't say for sure one way or the other but I know that I have done skim bedding jobs on aluminum chassis to fill in the spots between the high points. I can tell you the rifles shot phenomenal but I can't say they wouldn't have done exactly the same if they had just been torqued into the aluminum so I guess you'd say it's somewhere between an educated guess and superstition.

[cw308]

Dakota
I read an article on leather bedding using a thin sheet of leather . I can see how leather would form and also grip . Never tried it though .