Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles About to attempt my first bedding job and i'm terrified.

. Yep. Let me add, make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without making a mess

LOL, Yeah, my first try I probably put in triple the amount of bedding material as needed. It was squishing out everywhere in quantity.

You want to use enough for it to squish out some. You get a feel for how much to use after the first one.

My first few, I had bedding compound end up in places I didn't know how it got there. In my hair, on the floor. Don't let it cure in your hair, it's hard to get out!!!

Since Aleks is asking about bedding Winchester model 70's:

Pre 64 model 70 30-06 fwt in swirly McMillan:




Pre 64 model 70 270 win fwt in hunters compact Mcmillan:


Pre 64 model 70 338 Alaskan:



Classic sporter 30-06:


FN BACO swirly McMillan:
[img]http://i1180.photobucket.com/albums/x401/chiefbsa/IMG_1169_zpsb0488b25.jpg[/img]

Hey guys, thanks for all the thoughtful responses. Appreciate all the help a ton. Special thanks to the guys who posted photos, as they were a big help in terms of ideas.

One more thing I haven't worked out is whether to bed just at the recoil lug and tang, the whole action, or the whole action along with the entire barrel channel. Pros and cons?

The barrel does not sit perfectly in the middle of the channel either. The stock inletting sees it sitting slightly towards the left and almost touching the stock so I was going to sand out the channel a bit to attempt and fix this some before applying the compound
. Any better ideas?

Wrap tape around the barrel towards the front of the forend to centre the barrel.

So just wrap it around the barrel near the forend tip a couple times to help it centre?

It will make sure the barrel free floats in the stock

Adjust the thickness of the tape donut to have barrel riding where you want it. Eyeball it for float, as that's about where you will be when the bedding hardens.

Thanks guys awesome

A few random bedding thoughts:

+1 on locating the barrel via tape donut

I strongly prefer silly putty to modeling clay to fill voids in the stock and action, it comes out much cleaner and more easily for me.

I like to bed either the recoil lug back to the mag inlet only, or that area plus the tang. If doing the lug and tang I'll put a wrap or three of tape around the center of the action, floating the areas which aren't being bedded and getting a little extra thickness of bedding compound where they are. Don't go crazy with that or you can screw up the z-axis relationship of the action to the bottom metal.

Thanks carl. Is there any benefit to bedding the whole action, or am I better off just bedding the recoil lug?

Also, the tape donut should be on the barrel at the spot where it begins to leave the forend correct?

I think there is some benefit to bedding the lug, as you can control the actions location relative to the stock completely that way. Bedding the whole action (including around the mag recess) is prettier, if you do it well and want to admire the bedding job.

The tape donut can be anywhere along the barrel/stock interface where it won't interfere with bedding compound squeezing out of the lug area. I do prefer it towards the end of the forend.

There is a big debate around here whether to bed the recoil lug "solid" or to tape it off. I prefer to tape it off on the front, sides, and bottom with at least two layers of tape.

I prefer to do it my way. You can't argue with the fn results:

This one has 2 recoil lugs bedded tight. Works great on paper and even better on critters:




This is a pre 64 30-06 fwt that shoots alright:




[img]http://i1180.photobucket.com/albums/x401/chiefbsa/013_zpsaa2b4d1e.jpg[/img]


Boxer says it's all about the bullets. What a crock of chit. If you can't get cheap azzed bullets like these Winchester powerpoints and Hornady interlcoks to shoot well I don't want it. Any numb nuts can get sierra gamekings and A max's to shoot? It's all about the bedding. Without that, you're chasing your fn tail and burning powder unnecessarily.. Pretty fu cking simple..

Your pretty fn amazing.......

He thinks so.

Here is my question, and frankly why I dont bed my own stuff...

After you drop the action in the stock and the bedding material squeezes out, how do you clean that off the stock? I have run tape on the top and use release agent but cant seem to get all the devcon off. How do you bedding pros handle that?

I was at Kampfields one time and he had several stocks being bedded and drying, they all had gobs of bedding material oozing out, and no tape IIRC. Will that stuff just snap off clean when dry if release agent is used?

passport;
Top of the morning to you sir, hopefully this finds you well.

With the understanding that I'm in no way an expert or pro at bedding and even though I've done somewhere around 5-6 dozen over the last 30 years I still seem to be learning I'd say this about that.

So I tape the stocks with painter's tape - green or blue, but have found "fresh" tape is better than stuff that's been in my shop for years.

I then clean off the excess with popsicle sticks that I've ground flat so they're like small scrapers you could say.

Then I use a cotton swab with white gas on it but use that sparingly as one doesn't want the white gas bleeding into the "good bedding" as it were.

When I just left the pieces that oozed out there to dry and then attempted to cut them off it seemed that I either managed to scrape the bluing or it would break off below where I'd wanted it to.

For the most part now bolt guns are pretty straight forward jobs but then too different actions seem to respond a wee bit differently - so stiffer actions like a Remington 700 are typically an easier job than a military 98 whose cut out makes it a bit more bendy in the middle.

The most "interesting" bedding jobs for me were fooling with a Mini 14 trying to get it to hit anything at all really and a full length stock muzzle loader. The muzzle loader was a treat getting out of the stock.....

Anyway sir, like the proverbial road to Mecca, there's a few ways no doubt and that was mine. All the best to you and good luck on your bedding jobs whichever method you choose.

Dwayne

Dwayne, good info. I need to grow a pair and make another run at this..

And what is "white gas"?