This appears to have been missed.
On a hunting rifle where the entire action is unable to be bedded, a pillar is best used fore and aft with at least a half inch of bedding compound surrounding the pillar for strength, the action should touch both the pillar and compound and to bed the knox form for it's entire length.
If the action can be fully bedded along it's sides, then pillars are also desirable, either with the knox form bedded for 1/2-1" of it's length OR left unbedded forward of the recoil lug recess.
Either methods work very well, however, with very heavy barrel contours, I like to bed the entire length of the knox form and free float forward from there.
With my comp rifles where there is no tapered knox form and one dimension to the muzzle, I bed the entire action, even if it has an aluminium beddng block, the recoil lug, the mag well upper sides and the bottom metal and leave the barrel floating all the way from the recoil lug forward.
Ihave tried with/without a stress free pad under the first inch or so under the barrel, no difference has been seen, so I no longer bother.
Cheers.