engineer40
Well-Known Member
A little history of epoxy bedding round receivers when it was first done decades ago.....
Remington 7XX receivers were popular in benchrest matches. They were cheap and did very well with 22 and 24 caliber cartridges shooting bullets under 100 grains of weight. Full contact epoxy bedding them with the barrels totally free floating was great for best accuracy.
Some of the high power match rifle shooters tried epoxy bedding their .30-06 chambered rifles built on the Remington 7XX receivers. Again, best thing for accuracy to date. For a couple hundred rounds.
Then fliers were noticed; not too bad but 1/4 to 1/2 MOA away from aiming point that top ranged competitors easily noticed. So they rebedded the receiver all over again. Same thing happened a few hundred rounds later. Those using Remington actions on their 30 caliber magnums rarely got 200 rounds down range before they started throwing fliers.
Some of the military teams tried a 2" thick recoil lug on their Remington action based 30 caliber magnums to resist the torque 200 grain bullets put on their barreled actions leaving at 2800 to 2900 fps. That helped for an extra hundred or so shots.
Then someone decided to copy what some benchresters had started doing with their Remington receivers; epoxy them in a flat side/bottom aluminum sleeve with cutouts for bolt and loading. That fixed the problem and the same epoxy bedding job on that sleeve lasted for a few barrels.
In the 1980's when really good bullets were available in 28 caliber, people shooting 7-08's with 140 grain bullets from barrels fit to round Remington receivers, the receiver stayed in place and accuracy stayed good. Same thing when people started shooting 155's from their .308 Win's in round receivers; all things held together.
All of which sort of ended up with the old rule of thumb that bullets heavier than about 160 grains not be used with round receivers if best accuracy is the objective. Mid Tompkins has championed that for decades; as have others.
Hey Bart, what was the reason that the bedding failed after a couple hundred rounds on the round receivers using heavier bullets? Thanks.
Can anyone disprove this from personal experience? This is the first I've heard of it.