Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber Montana Bedding And Pre-Fight Checklist...

This thread is an excellent resource that needs to be made a sticky.

Thank you, Brad, for your work to create this presentation. And your photos are excellent. Merry Christmas.

Really neat looking job Brad. Looks way better than most of mine have turned out. One question. Do you check that the pillars are at the correct height so as not to induce stress into the action before going "farmer tight" on the screws?


Dave.

Tagged. Thanks for the write-up and photos Brad. I'm gearing up to bed my first action, a M70 Classic into a McMillan. Your post goes a long way in helping me visualize a few steps.

Excellent post Brad. Have done a few myself with the only significant differences being that I stop at the lug, floating the shank one wrap of masking tape, use a set of bedding studs rather than OEM fasteners, and get a tad lazy on the stock masking too, using WD-40 on some Q-Tips to spin/slide the fresh, extruded AcraGlas gel off. Running a fresh Q-tip with WD-40 around the stock/action makes a nice, clean fillet. After curing, a soapy sponge removes the WD-40 off the stock's surface after popping the action loose.

Pretty sweet write up, just wish it would have come 2 days sooner or I would have done mine a day later. Did two on Saturday similar to SAS's upgrade, I'm sure they'll shoot similar to the 5 I've already done similar but I'd like to try something different. Excellent thread, thanks and appreciate the pics.

Runny Acra glass is all we used to have. The gel came much later. The runny stuff is supposed to be harder, and is often used as an adhesive, where being thin is an advantage. I have never tried the gel so can not compare, but did one stock with the gel type stuff from midway. I thought it was way soft.

I pulled it last night and surprisingly it looked really good. In fact it is perfect except I got more in the barrel channel than I care for but will likely shoot it as it. A Dremel tool will fix the issue if it needs fixed. I'm still not using the runny variety ever again.

Brad,one more question please. After bedding there is a very thin layer of compound on top of the pillars,I'm guessing you just leave it there?


The regular original Accraglass is perfect for gluing up hidden tang knives. It's thinness allows it to perfectly conform to an antler handle and it's shrinkage is less that other epoxies.

Dave, that's a good question, and frankly I'm not really sure how to answer it.

I suppose the way to say it is, with the action screws mating the action to the pillars, I've never had a Montana not have enough room all around it to allow an thin layer of epoxy while still bearing on and exposing the pillars. If there were a problem spot higher than either of the pillars, it wouldn't allow the bedding material.

... makes me wonder if in fact the Kimber slave action is not slightly oversized?

I will say, I once had a Rem Model 7 who's stock was so badly formed the bolt wouldn't run in the raceways without binding. Only when the action screws were completely lose would the bolt run free. Talk about "stressed"... That one went back to Remington!

I do... the top of the pillars are scuffed up enough it's not going anywhere. And really, 45 inch-lbs for the front, and 35 for the rear are really not that much. I don't worry about it, and have never found it a problem.

Bill, I'm glad it worked out!

To all, thanks for the kind words!

Brad

Once you get done with all of your set up steps, do you find your rifles hold zero better than an out of the box set up?

Well done.

tag for later

Great post. Thank you!

Brad - awesome post! Thank you

Brad, good post. Still kicking myself for selling that 30-06 I bought from you.

Brad,

This is impressive. I usually don't realize I bedded a rifle until I wake up and find it in the gun vise.

Props.




Travis

Flave, same thing here. I always seem to bed them after work, go to sleep and then wake up at 2 or 4AM and pop them out of the stock.


Brad, your bedding job reminds me of a finish carpenter type work. Mine are more along the lines of corral type 'carpentry' work!