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

Nice job on the bedding, i've got to do my 300 with a backward action (LH). It is a ruger m77 mkII also, it shoots 3/4 inch groups with the ruger forend pressure bedded stock. My new stock will also be pressure bedded at the forend but in a nice pepper laminate. I've heard of people having trouble with their groups after freefloating their m77's. I think if you have a good consistent shooting rifle, 1 moa or better, you should leave the pressure bedding at the forend alone (as in my rifle's case). If you have one that doesn't shoot good that way, then by all means freefloat the barrel. Experiment any way you can to get it to shooting good.

Great thread Dave! But don't DO what I did right before a hunt start messing around. I got a m77 hawkeye SS last augast in 358 win for october moose hunt. Opened the box from the mail and ouch that barrel channel looked full of contact. I had been waiting awhile so I had lots of ammo loaded up! First handloads I tried were good around 1 to 2"s a couple with the first two touching. You would think I could leave it alone. Well I had a few cold ones after a long hot day at work and broke out the sand papper! Darn it free floated barrel gotta be better right? Well not sure yet, see the plastic stock wants to spring up and make contact it's obviously designed to do so and is very annoying. The forend is to flimsy and easy to twist. I tried shimming with buisness cards at the range. POA moved up about 8" and groups started off good but under recoil (250gr @ 2350 fps)the shim would move after a couple of rounds. ( should have tried tape ). So confidence was shaky I did manange 3" 200yd group but would it be consistant??

The other day I made a little pad at the forend with plastic weld epoxy from napa.( should be easy to sand out if I don't like it) I thought at least I can see how consistant a little upward pressure is. I've spent to much time looking at Boyd's web site I like that salt 'n' pep look with stainless. Might go this way down the road but I don't really want to add any weight, this is a walkin' roamin' the bush gun.

You would think I would learn form the past I did the same think to a rem 700 SS but managed to remove enough material to get it floated. It shoots good now but if you give the butt of the stock a bump the forend rattles off the barrel(VERY FRUSTRATING). If I forget my buck grunt call I might be o.k with the sound it produces. LOL! Gotta go babbies up agian.

THANKS for the demo and info will be bedding some guns soon with it.
AND BEST OF WITH LUCK ROLLIN' YOUR OWN IT'S A BLAST!! I know bad pun

Thanks clover & welcome to the campfire.

How'd the moose hunt go?

(you can't leave us hanging like that)

Work obligations Kiaboshed it, had a bull tag too. It's a party hunt here (no really that's what it's called in the reg's)and my gang only saw a back side of a cow, so I real only missed out on the party!

The year before we bag a calf on day 1 and a perfectly filled out younger bull (our butcher called a solid 1100#) on day three. Then it was a party and I'm still eating moose tacos!

Picked up some accraglass today. Last night spent a good hour stairing into this stock trying to invision how best this should be done. Top of reciol lug area looks about 1/4" Thinking about extending this deck area back to mag. This would make more stable plateform. It looks like if I want to extend bedding for inch or two down the barrel it would take alot compound!

In no rush still trying to think this out best. I'll have to hide the epoxy when the beers come out! If I can master mamma bears digital camara (I'm still analog) I will post some pics.

Thanks again!

good luck, don't glue it in there permanently.

Yeah thats a good possiblity Dave,

our moose hunts are party only as well, and we can only do it once in a lifetime so you really have to choose your party well

Sorry about the once in a lifetime thing Dave, because moose are a great game. We here are spoiled and get tags pretty much every year. I'm 5 for 10. and did not apply for a couple of years there for I saw a bad party or two. The party I run with now is superior I wouldn't change a thing. Thier a great bunch and with an abbreviated version we clubbered them deer last fall and with the chest freezer full it helps takes the string out of missing moose camp.

Good job Dave. The only minor situation that I see in the photos is that the correct screwdriver was not used and have buggered the slots. Install new screws.

First off, Dave.....thanks for posting. I'm hung up on this step. If I relieve the barrel channel and screw in the barreled action after applying the bedding compound, why do I need the tape? Won't the barrel be free floating given all the channel inletting I've already done?

Another use for the tape was to help keep the barrel centered in the channel which helps keep the action squared, etc while the bedding is curing. I did this step and it worked out very well.

CLB

Yep.

That's what I use it for, to keep it centered while the bedding cures.

Great informative thread! I have varmint 3 rifles that doesn't shoot as well as I like. Think I'm going bed them now!

I didn't take pics but I bedded and pillar bedded my older Ruger tang safety 30-06 and had excellent results.I used Devcon epoxy and Devcon release.Worked great.

Dave:
I commend you for your efforts in putting together an excellent thread on bedding Ruger M77 MkII action. With all the picks and your attention to detail I know it was not easy and was quite time consuming. You are a credit to the community here at 24 Hour Campfire.
I had posted over at Varmint Hunters .com on how to bed a Ruger MkII with its angled forend action screw and your thread was recommended buy Pauls and am glad he did.

If I may be so bold as to offer an observation or two.

IMHO the wood showing thru on your bedding indicates that the action screws were tightened down to hold the action in while the bedding cured. Unless the wood that is showing in your picture was already fitting your action perfectly (which I doubt) then when you torqued the action screws down you inadvertently induced stress in the action. My method of holding stock in place is to wrap masking tape or surgical tubing around stock and action to hold in place. Action screws would be used to keep action aligned in stock with little to no torque on them. Sometimes I lightly torque action screws down a tad to align things up but then I�ll back them back out a � to � a turn so as to not have them affect any pressure on action.

A method I use to check for if an action is stressed is to support rifle butt on a table or counter top and while holding vertically grasp forend at tip and place a finger to feel movement between forend and barrel. I found it helps a bit if you wedge a bit of skin between barrel and wood in order to feel movement, it ain�t much so pay close attention. Now with action screws tight loosen and tighten one at a time each action screw if you feel movement in barrel then action then action is being stressed as you mess with the screws. Obviously this will only work on free floated barrels. Also I suspect the angled front action screw may have a less affect on this method as opposed to action screws that are perpendicular to action.

To respond to others who have mentioned leaving the forend pressure in during bedding I don�t see anyway this can be done and still effectively bed an action.
� If you use the action screws to torque the action down during bedding then the upwards pressure on the barrel will induce its own torque on action and compound the problem.
� If you use the tape/surgeons tubing then you lose all your forend pressure anyways because there is no torque on action as it should be during bedding.
� If I did a good job of bedding and can�t find any stress in action with the method I described above and bench shooting shows still more must be done then I go to applying a forend pad.

So sorry for this post being so long and wordy, but felt this info may be of some use to you guys. I hope so anyways.

Cheers, Larry

PS: For anyone looking for more info on bedding a rifle Google �rifle bedding instructions�. Gobs of info there.

Larry, where you been? 3 posts in 4-years.....great post...come back.

My container of Acraglas suggests I tape (using electrical tape) the front and sides of the front lug. Anybody do this? I've got a Mark X Mauser action, and I'm worried about creating edges that could cause a mechanical lock.

I've paid to have several rifles bedded. I was too chicken to try it myself.

On those jobs, they also bedded the floor plates. I guess it makes sense to have the floor plate fully supported since it is carrying a torque load as well.

How do they do the floor and the action at the same time? Or do they do them seperately?

JM

Hey John, well I like the idea of bedding the bottom metal too. I guess I think of it as a step further than the bedding in the popular inletting areas. A step further would be the pillars.

I guess personally for my hunting rifles I'm happy with the bennifits of anchoring the action in the stock with the bedding I show above. I like the barrel to float free from the forend for consistancy gains in POI. the bedding in my hunting rifles just holds things true in the stock which helps me maintain that "float".

Most accuracy enthusiasts will carry things further & focus on so many things that are awesome but a bit beyond my accuracy demands at this time.

I just wanted to show a do it yourselfer process that that can help your average hunter take a big step in improving POI consistancy.

It's a bit of a "where do you stop" sort of thing, and there is no wrong opinion or answer.

Some say "if it aint broke don't fix it" and some are full blown customs fans that never stop pushing the envelope (god bless them I love that sort of passion in anything)




But this is where I settled in for my hunting rifles.

Excellent Post!

Tom