Bedding the action without the spacer is all well and good, as lonk as the action remains nuturalaly held in place...that is, with out the guard screws..this process takes some finess, so if one doesn`t know what there doing, the action will be warped, therefore the bedding, therefor poor results on target.
Shaman, if I were you I would stop now, wait for the spacer, then give the gun to someone that knows how to properly bed it. This will probably result in the removal of the stuff now in the stock.
I have used many comercial wood stocks, none of which were very well machined for the 98..probably because there so many different versions...but I`ll tell you that as a composit, HS is hard to beat,...tho we had to skim bed for a perfect fit. You may want to consider this option.
