Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Bedding a rifle...tape the lug or not?

WHile I've only done one bedding job, on a ruger Hawkeye, I taped the muzzale side of the lug as well as the bottom.

The reasoning was the muzzle side shouldn't be touching anything when the slanted action screw is tightened and the bottom of the lug shouldn't touch either because once it does further tightening of the action screw wont bring the action down to proper contact. After removing the tape from the bottom the action seating becomes the limiting factor, not the lug.