Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Bedding a heavy barrel

I'm getting ready to bed a rifle. My question is if I need to bed the first 1.5 or 2 inches of the barrel to support the barrel weight? It is my personal preference not to bed forward of the recoil lug, and float the whole barrel. I have no experience with a barrel this heavy and I wonder if there are any drawbacks to having this much weight dangling on the front of the action? If the answer is that I should bed part of the barrel the first 3.8 inches of the barrel contour is a straight 1.25" cylinder, should I bed to the end of the straight cylinder?

It is a short action FN SPR action which is like a model 70. The barrel is a 27" Krieger #17 contour. It's a McMillan A5 stock. I don't think it matters but FYI it's chambered in 6.5x47 Lapua.

I bed about 1.5" - 2" ahead of the lug.



Don't really know if it's needed, but it is common practice among most tactical rifle builders.

+1!

How do you control how far the bedding goes under the barrel?

Thanks, Tom

You can built a clay dam or just dremel the bedding off at a straight line.

I just use tape myself with release agent on it. I pop my barreled action out in 1hr 45min with Devcon and cut/trim everything.

Yep,tape works too. Your bed jobs look very similar to mine. Devcon is the stuff.....

I see you have bedded one with a two-point bedding and one with a full-action bedding, is there a reason why??

Tom

Thanks for the photo's, and input Gents. I think I shall employ that tape method on this one. Thanks for the photos. A picture is worth a thousand words. A couple of layers of tape would help center and float the barrel in the channel as well as control the goop from sticking where you don't want it.
My current plan is to bed 3 inches of the the barrel, then see how she shoots. If she puts them through one hole I'll leave it. If not I'll remove an inch of bedding and shoot it some more, and so on until I find the sweet spot that works with this barrels vibes.

I personally just like the idea of a fully floated barrel, but the extra support on this heavy of a barrel would be a plus I think. As long as it shoots I'm happy.

Here's a good tutorial I went by the first time out.

http://www.rdprecision.net/diy2.html

Tom,

Just personal preference. Sometimes I want to take the time and make them good, then there are times I want the same results, but not so fancy.

Heck I even do a little "dab" on a light weight rifle and she shoots amazing for such a light weight rifle. Just bedding compound in the lug, no barrel pad or bedded tang. Simple and quick.