Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Hornady One Shot Lube As A Release Agent?

Yes...another good product that's been used for decades. -Al

When rain is in my hunting trip forecast, the Johnson paste wax come out of storage...

Great minds think alike.

Ditto...

Finished this new stock for one of my BR guns a few weeks back. No aerosol lubes or slathering on cold cream, no dime store hot glue or chewing gum for bedding compound...just the same basics that always work.






Good shootin' -Al

I'd like to hear more about the stocks, sir.

Good shootin':) -Al

Not much to tell. Pretty much just an experiment to see if I could, one winter a few years back. After reverse engineering some Kelly McMillan videos, I made a mold, figured out something to use as fill (which turned out WAY too heavy), and made a stock. Pics are of the first one I did. Good and heavy long range prone stock but terrible for hunting. I shot a few PRS matches with it (until covid shut things down and my hip finally gave out and needed a replacement), it was like moving through a stage carrying a telephone pole. 18 pounds all up with that barrel and glass. When I get some free time I'm gonna go back and figure out a lighter fill.


Edit to add: I did send Kelly a video of that first stock and told him he was my inspiration to try it. He was as impressed as someone like him could be towards a nobody like me. RiP Kelly.

My love now though is building these, where no bedding compound is allowed at all, whatsoever, period, the end.

Scratch built from a slab of wood and a pile of parts. 100% marriage of metal to wood.

Impressive skills, sir....my compliments.

Kelly and Dick Davis were both very good to me when I was starting out.

When the market was asking for factory installed pillars, Dick insisted they be epoxied in rather than molded in...as is done now. And Kelly agreed.

Time and ownership/management change, though. When I recently ordered a stock with no molded pillars and just pilot holes for the action screws, they questioned me several times about it...finally relented and said it would be an additional charge. I told them to just do the molded in pillars then and I'd just mill them out and do my own anyway. The only thing missing from the conversation was "Did you want fries with that?"

Good shootin' 👍-Al

Thank you sir I appreciate that.

Will be testing this one this week. While no animals were harmed during the bedding.....blue tape was used. More of that amateur workmanship we read about....

Al,
what is your preferred bedding compound?
do you use more than one kind, for different applications?

Thanks
Mark

Mark, Pro Bed 2000 is my prefered bedding compound for everything. When forced to do a glue-in, I pre bed with Pro Bed and do the glue -in with an industrial epoxy that contains titanium. Normally, the glue-ins are glued and screwed....meaning pillar bedded as usual and then glued in. The screws are extra insurance to them coming apart.

Other epoxies work well for bedding...mainly Marine Tex. Some Devcon products are good. They all have their quirks. Pro Bed fits with my technique. The longevity that Pro Bed delivers is outstanding. At the recent NBRSA Score Nationals, one of the yardage winners shot a stock I pillar bedded in 2008. The bedding hasn't been touched up since.

Good shootin' -Al

Your lock is on the wrong side?

Pretty tired old joke, that.

Thanks for the reply,
I've used Brownells Acraglass Gel and Steelbed and have been satisfied with the results, but I see that most people doing a number of bedding jobs are using other materials.
I purchased some Marine Tex Grey and plan on giving it a try. I have heard good things about Pro Bed 2000 and plan on getting some to try.
Mark

Mark, I started doing bedding with Acraglass Gel. While the initial results were good, it didn't take too long to realize there had to be something better for longevity. From that point, the search was on for a better product. I like the fact that Charlie Robertson developed Pro Bed specifically for bedding work. The graphite in Pro Bed is one of the big factors in it's longevity. I do try other compounds occasionally...on my own stuff.

Marine Tex is a very good product too. A fair amount of people use JB Weld but it has some quirks that I'm not fond of for bedding...mainly inconsistency.

Just my 2 cents worth. -Al

Thanks for the insights, but a question keeps floating around in my head: What effect does some of these "home remedy" release agents have on the chemistry of epoxy bedding compounds? I've long suspected that there's more to it than simply preventing a bond between two surfaces.

For the record, I've used paste wax (Johnson's, Butcher's, and Moser's) for the purpose and have yet to have an issue. From the first time I opened a jar of Brownell's release agent back in the Bronze Age I was leery of its viscosity.

Anecdote: I'll never forget the time I walked in on an old gunsmith friend who was in the process of attacking a rifle with a hatchet, while muttering/cussing about idiots doing their own bedding jobs and then coming to him for relief.

Feral thats a good looking flinter you built

Exactly. You can't make this stuff up.....


I've taken several rifles that apart for people that had unintentionally ended up with a 'glue-in' due to improper prep and/or improper release agent. It never took longer than 15-20 minutes to get them apart and the stocks were never damaged in the process. If you had work being done there, I hope you packed it up and headed elsewhere.