Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Tikka T3 Bedding Upgrade

Hey guys, I've been working on two methods of improving Tikka's bedding system for 2 years now. You really only have 3 choices to improve the existing bedding/lug design.

1) Build a custom lug, and Tig weld it into the existing recoil lug slot.

2) Install a custom designed and built "coffin style" recoil lug between the barrel and the action, after the action has been faced off to remove the champfer. (This is the lug and machining I developed and have been using for my last 5 custom Tikka builds)

3) Pillar bed the factory stock, and "glass" bed the factory style recoil lug into the factory or aftermarket stock.

I did quite a bit of work this winter, with several factory stocks, perfecting the method of pillar and glass bedding the factory Tikka stock. As some of you well know, the factory lug design, and how it relates to the stock and action, can pose a problem for "proper" bedding.

We want perfect pillar contact, and perfect bedding contact all around the recoil lug, without accidentally filling up the lug lug slot in the action, or even having any bedding material get between the recoil lug slot in the action, and the top of the recoil lug. There isn't much contact to begin with, and any bedding material will take more away, and change the whole bedding elevation and create stress on the barreled action after it's cleaned up. I feel that the only way you can do a perfect job with having to install pillars, is to do it in 3 steps...waiting 24 hours between steps (for the bedding to fully cure) before I start the next step. If working with an aftermarket stock, with pillars already installed, it still takes two steps. I've been using Devcon 10110, and aluminum pillars that can be machined to the perfect length.

I enjoy doing this so much, I bought a mill to ensure the inletting, and bedding clean-up are perfect, and am going to do more of this in the future.

As you can see in the pics, the factory lug gets effectively, glued into the stock. The way the Tikka action is shaped, allows bedding material to completely surround , and encompass the recoil lug. Only the bearing surface of the lug is exposed, the remaining area supports the action with bedding material. I also leave a 1/2" pad of bedding under the barrel shank. This might not be necessary, but I like a little there for support, and I feel it ties everything together. The pictures aren't the greatest, but I think you'll get the idea.




The Pillars-




And the rifle that I also painted-

[img]http://i784.photobucket.com/al...eddingSynthetic-11_zps317ec3af.jpg[/img]