Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Bedding a Mannlicher stock

Last year I acquired a full-stocked Mannlicher-Schoenauer 6.5x54 carbine (a reworked Greek 1903, not a civilian sporter) which had been "sort of" glass-bedded. I want to re-do this but am unsure whether I should free-float it to ahead of the breech (or up to the rear sight band) or do a three-point bedding with a contact point at the nosecap or full-length bed it. If anyone has had experience with these I'd appreciate their input.

Many thanks

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Stuart

Stuart,

I got a basket case 1903 Greek action which I rebuilt into a nice hunting rifle and I used a nicely figured stutzen stock as the finishing touch. I had the same question when it came to bedding but after discussing it with a couple of professionals that had experience in full length stocking, I'm convinced that these rifles need to be neutral bedded.

I bedded the action first then I bedded the barrel and the nose cap full contact but neutral. Bear in mind that I chose the barrel that I used and it was stress relieved and from a top of the line maker. This is only one example and I know of others that used pressure bedding at the muzzle and got good results also. I experimented with free floating in this situation but it is sort of superfluous with this style of stock when you have to float not only the barrel but the nose cap as well.

My solution worked for a very consistant hunting rifle that isn't supposed to be a bench gun.

Regards.

Nonense, thanks for the advice. This one was rebarelled as well, although there is no maker's mark on it that I can see. Your advice seems sound. I agree that trying to free-float it is not practical. I'll do as you did and bed just the action and the muzzle, but with no pressure point at the end and see where that gets me. I can always experiment with a bit of card at the muzzle to see if that improves things. This rifle has seen some questionable work done on it, such as the front and rear sight bases being apparently dovetailed with a common triangular file (!!). I am going to make a new front sight base from 3/8" key stock and cut a new dovetail with a sight base file and I might be able to clean up the rear dovetail. I also have a few extra scope mounting holes to fill as it seems to have been fitted for just about every scope mount around. It currently has a G&H type side mount which I am using with a Weaver 2.5. Eventually, if can get it to shoot well enough, may try and fit an aperture sight right on the receiver ring if I can. But I have lots of work ahead of that at the moment. I'm experimenting with 35 gr of RL15 behind Hornady 160gn so that should be a good starting point for a load.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Stuart

I have bedded two Ruger RSI, I tried several different ways and found out that if you bed the tip of the stock just behind the sight collar and make sure that the metal forend cap isn't touching the barrel that they will shoot well.