Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles DIY bedding M77 (pic heavy)

Dave ... sent you a PM.

I saw that George, mighty kind offer.

You fellers are coming out of the woodwork trying to make a reloader out of me

I PM'd back

Bend has a set of dies in the mail heading my way, Avagadro has offered up a lee press, Backwoodsbrian called me last night & says he's got a pound of powder I can have to get started with.....

You guys are all terrible!! Enablers is what you all are!!

Seriously you're all great. Awesome!!!

Thanks for the post Dave!! I hope you get it tightened up again!

Did you change the scope?

Dave, I've got a Model 70 Classic .264, vintage 2002 or so, that loves 120 gr Nosler Ballistic Tips over a stout load of H4831 (have killed deer and antelope w/ this combination). Mine doesn't care much for factory ammunition, but in fairness, I only shot a couple of boxes.

Dave great thread.

I have done a couple of savage 99s and would add that anyplace on the action that has a hole can be filled with clay to keep the glass from seeping in and creating a mechanical bond. A 99 has holes and slots in the rear tang. I use the polymer clay from the craft store, the kind kids use to make beads. It only hardens in the oven so it stays soft and comes in really bright colors which makes it easy to clean up.

I also put a little paste wax on the finish of the wood around where Im working to help with squish clean up.

Swish

Dave:
Your job looks great!
I too have gone to the gel.

I am not as careful though.

So I usually apply blue masking tape along the top of the barrel channel edge
and checkered areas to keep any unwanted epoxy off of the wood.

The blue tape comes off easily and does not leave any sticky residue behind.

Dave,
Thanks for the great thread. I have a Hawkeye in 257 Roberts that is very inconsistent. After seeing your pics and text I am now comfortable in giving the freefloat / bed job a try myself.
The information you provided is so much better than anything I've seen in the gun mags.
Thanks!
Ernie

Dave,

Great gun in a great cartridge. I'm interested in how the beginning reloading goes for you. I've got a 7STW for which commercial ammo has pretty well dried up too. I don't reload either so I am stuck with what's available. I bought myself a 338 Win Mag to use for elk instead of the 7STW. Easy to find commercial ammo for the 338.

Well I'm going to give the winchester 140 powerpoints one more chance after the bedding job and I will also try to have my backup scope ready to go by the weekend (I borrowed it to a friend that is having a hard time giving it back).

So hopefully I can do some more range testing this weekend & post some results.

Pssssst.....





I got my dies

Big thanks to member "Bend".

Sweet deal!!

Well guys, this morning wasn't my best performance behind the trigger

"I didn't drink too much last night only terty cans of beer..."

But the rifle was trying to do it's part. I went back to the original fact load I started with which was the winchester powerpoints in 140 gr.

3 round group.



Like I said, not my best work but I really felt as if the rifle was doing it's part. I decided to print 6 on the same point of aim. I know for certain I pulled this right shot.




It shows promise. It is showing tighter grouping & more consistency with these win powerpoints after the free float & glass bed.

Glad to see things are looking up! If you haven't done so already a trigger job or replacement should help even more.

yeah, before this last session my 3 shot groups would explore the boundaries of that 3" circle. So I am happy to see the improvement here. The rifle was really trying to do it's part, the wind never let up all weekend and as I stated, It wasn't my best day behind the trigger. I knew actually on both of those shots to the right that I pulled them.

I'm looking forward to a calm day with a clear head to give it another go

also looking forward to doing some hand loading for this one. If I can find some damn primers.

If you make it down to the metro area, I can spot you a box or 2 of large rifle primers.

Thanks bucktail, I appreciate the offer.

I'll wait till I've got all my stuff together & actually ready to load & hopefully by then i can put my hands on some primers locally.

Dave...

Awesome thread! I may actually consider taking a run at my 25.06 with the new HS Precision stock. Been suggested I only "skim bed" it...??? The action has about 1/8" forward/backward play until I tighten the screws, which I don't like at all!

Noticed that you didn't bed the full length of the action. Is that of any potential consequence? Or just because it's a Ruger?

my quick answer is "laziness"

but it's actually more of an opinion of necessity.

It's a hunting rig in a wood stock, granted it's a laminate & seems to be well made. But still, it's a hunting rig. It's a factory rifle with a factory barrel, massaged factory trigger, this is a mild modification that brings gains in repeatable performance.

In my opinion it's the biggest step a poor boy like myself can take with a factory rifle without turning it into a money bucket. The brownells kit is probably around 16 bucks give or take. Well there is enough compound in the kit to do at least half a dozen rifles in the way I show here. So I've got around two & a half bucks in materials into it & the rest is my time.

It really is a low buck enhancement.


More specific to your question about full length bedding on the action, I honestly feel it would be more for looks & less for performance with this rifle.

If I had to rate the areas of the action/inletting I'd say 90% of the value/importance is up in the recoil lug area with the other 10% being some lateral bedding in the rear for alignment assistance. And I guess I see more value in that lateral or �side bedding� behind the magazine well where the stock gains some more meat.

I guess it becomes a question of �where do you draw the line?�

The effort/benefit ratio is strong when you go this far with your home bedding job. Minimal work & the gains are huge. Now when you start taking it further than this the work becomes much more entailed and the benefits for your efforts aren�t as great. Don�t get me wrong, I�m not saying it�s not worth full length bedding of the action. I�m just saying it becomes quite a bit more difficult to do this and while there are gains I don�t feel the gains are huge. Also if I was going to invest the effort of full length bedding I would also be looking at pillars. And if I was going to do that much work you can bet it would probably not be a factory barrel and probably not a factory stock either.

I�m getting too gabby with my explanation here but I�m trying to say this is basically where I draw the line with a factory rifle in a factory stock. It�s a nice performance modification that helps you get the most out of your factory rifle.

Now if I could hold it straight & steady so I could cut some respectable groups to show off to you guys I�d really have something to smile about.




I�ll give it another shot this weekend maybe.

Recoil too much for ya...........?