DIY pillar bedding?

[dirtball]

Chad,
Pretty cool IMO also. Thanks. Once again that is the best freakin bedding job I have ever seen, it is perfection.

I agree whole heartedly!!!!!
Dave

 

[Len Backus]

Good thread!

 

[Gene]

I bought amy first Cooper last September (before Dan was dumped) in 8 twist, 6mmBR Claro Varminter stock. I fire formed 20 cases right away, accuracy was ho-hum. Too cold to shoot since.

Today, I pulled it apart to adjust the trigger. To my surprise, it is nicely glass bedded, but no pillars. Most shooters are aware Coopers have a reputation for accuracy. I found the lack of pillars in a rifle of this quality amazing. I reassembled it, putting 50 inch lbs. on the action screws. When we get back to 55 or so degrees, I will wring it out pretty good.

 

[NesikaChad]

Dakota Predator rifles are pillar bedded.

Lilja barrels too.

FYI to those interested in a "mid price" rifle.

 

[J E Custom]

There are those who argue whether pillars are needed. I advocate their use personally.

A very dear friend and mentor of mine that I admire greatly is Middleton Tompkins. Mid doesn't see the need for pillars and he even says he likes the fact that a non pillar bedded action compresses into the stock when he tightens the screws to it. Mid has forgotten more about winning national events than 99% of us will ever know so it's tough to argue with him. He's been kicking peoples asses since the late 1950's. His daughter Sheri was the world Palma champion in 2003.

I'm still not convinced and my example is that I used them in Kyle Leibertrau's Palma Rifle and he won the 2007 world Palma championships. I used them on Matt Emmons Olympic 3p rifle that won a gold medal in 2004, and again in both of Cathy Winstead's Silhouette rifles that have also won world championships.

They certainly aren't hurting anything.

Like Chad I believe that they can do nothing but help.

I have bedded with pillars and without pillars and rifle to rifle accuracy was more consistant
with pillars (It could be that the bedding quality is less important with pillars) So rather than
take a chance I use pillars on all stocks no matter what they are made of just to be sure.

Just my opinion
J E CUSTOM

 

[mtelkhntr78]

Heres the update so far. I havent shot the rifle yet but I am calling my first pillar bedding a sucess. My goals were met, I didnt ruin my stock and I didnt glue the action/barrel to the stock. So meeting those two criteria made me pretty happy.
A couple of things that I did that I think helped my effort were: I covered the entire exterior of the stock with painters tape. That really helped keep the little smears of epoxy not to be an issue at all. Second I read the directions about 100 times before doing it picking out all the details(thanks Chad).
One tool that proved to be very usefull was my "Dremel" tool. I dont know if that is kosher with how gunsmiths do buisness, but it really made removing some of the inletting very easy and also cleaning up the epoxy after it all dried was a piece of cake. It was very precise and easy to control.
By the way I used a kit from "ScoreHi" Gunsmithing. It worked great and the customer service was great too. I also rented the jig for drilling out a Rem 700 stock and that worked slick as hell. I would deffinetly recomend using them.
Now i just need to mount the scope and head for the range.

 

[NesikaChad]

Glad it all worked out.

One way to inspect a bedding job to see if it's really working;

Get a magnetic dial indicator tool.

clamp the gun in a vice by either the butt stock or the forend.

Attach dial indicator base to barrel. Have indicator touching the stock.

One at a time, loosen and tighten the guard screws. The indicator should not move more than .001" A really good one will stay at or below .0005" (seriously)

If it does this, your bedding is fine. If not, well. . .may want to take another stab at it. I'd shoot it first just to see, it may shoot fine this way. highpower stuff isn't quite as fussy as rimfire.

I first learned bedding on smallbore target rifles. 22's are quite a bit more fussy than centerfire guns so it was/is really critical to get it "extra right" when bedding them.

 

[cva54]

There are lots of guys who have done a bedding job at home.

Some did a great job.

Some did ok.

Then there are the guys who later showed up at the GS shop with an action glued to a stock.

It's all about the prep work and the procedure.

Bedding is not easy, nor is it difficult. There are a series of steps that should be observed and followed to the letter. Deviate from that and all bets are off. So be honest with yourself. if you have some experience/knowledge with resins and a good mechanical aptitude, you will probably be ok. If you don't, then perhaps its a good idea to leave enough alone until you can afford to have someone else do it.

If it's worth doing twice, then its worth doing right the first time. If there's doubt, take it to someone who knows (and by knows I mean KNOWS) what they are doing.

Good luck

Chad

looks like a remmy to me and tha is one awsome job

 

[mtelkhntr78]

Chad,

I will give it a try. What steps do you take to make sure that the barrell/stock have no play? If it does have some play how will it affect the gun and will it make it worse than before it was bedded?
Thanks for the help?

 

[NesikaChad]

Not a Remington.

Honestly, in almost ten years of gun plumbing I've bedded less than 10 Remingtons.

Weird huh?

I don't even own a Remington to be honest!

 

[NesikaChad]

Chad,

I will give it a try. What steps do you take to make sure that the barrell/stock have no play? If it does have some play how will it affect the gun and will it make it worse than before it was bedded?
Thanks for the help?

I have to assume you floated the barrel. If you didn't then I don't really know how you'll inspect this. I've never bedded/built a rifle that didn't have a fully floated barrel.

Your question regarding play and its forecasted effects on accuracy? Take ALL of this with a grain of salt bud. Seriously. The end proof is how the thing shoots, period. There are a number of guns in circulation today that defy all logic. That is on both ends of the spectrum.

There's a woman in the smallbore community named Tammy Forrester who has an Anschutz rifle with a nice fat bulge in the middle of the barrel. It literally jumps from 22 to 25 caliber. She had a squib load and didn't catch it before slamming another one right behind it. You would never know it by the way the thing shoots. It's a hammer and she was a serious force to be reckoned with. I've not talked to her in a very long time so I don't know if she still shoots or not. Very nice person.

David K, a good personal friend of mine paid a very well known/respected gun maker out on the east coast over $3000 bucks to have a palma rifle built back in 2001/2002. On a good day this gun would hold 3 minutes of angle at 300 yards. It was AWFUL. He brought it to me (this is how we became friends) and I literally had to tear it completely apart and replace almost everything in it. In the end it shot fine, so well in fact that it produced some serious head scratching at the test shed in Quantico, VA.

The crappy part of this deal was it had really good parts in it when it was initially built and from all outward appearances it was built right. I'm still not certain exactly what it was that caused the problem. Going from a 3MOA rifle to a 1/4-1/3rd MOA rifle is a pretty significant jump though.

You just never know till you go and wring it out on a piece of paper.

 

[mtelkhntr78]

I made it out to the range on Monday and got the barrel broke in and conditioned. I used the David Tubb's Final Finish to help with that process. The performance of the rifle wasnt to bad, but it pretty hard to put much weight into how it preforms under those conditions. It grouped 7 shots under an inch with 3 flyers. But that was all done with the FF bullets and a charge of powder that was pretty light and not really desigend for this kind of caliber(powder per the Tubb's website). So like I said I am not putting much in that test. My paranoid self is just a little worried that those flyers will show up later when I start my load development, but thats just me being paranoid. I am hoping that some time this week I can get out and start working up a load. I am going to try out the OCW develpoment test and see if that produces an accurate load.
On another note I just finished pillar bedding my 06' Rem 700. It went well. Had a chance to learn from my earlier mistakes.

 

[blipelt]

This was an awesome post to read very informative. Thanks Chad for all of the knowledge you have given us!!!

Brent

 

[mo]

JE or Chad. You both talked about that you both pillar bed when your bedding actions. Why not just pillar bed? When you pillar bed isn't the outcome suppose to be that action only sits in the pillars, and doesn't touch the stock? By the way Chad your job looks great.