Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Aluminum bedding block

I know that you "did NOT say that any action can be dropped into any "beddding block" stock and shoot well." The rifle shooting " as well " as the in the bedded wood stock would not have surprised me though. It shooting better is what surprised me. I have only had two stocks with a bedding block. One is an H.S. and the other is a B&C from a Rem Mtn Rifle. Neither has had any bedding work done.

I put a very accurate .243 into the H.S. for a while and it shot as well as it had in the factory wood but it is a Varmint stock while the .243 is a sporter barrel. The action fit very good and showed no signs of stress. I did not care for how it looked though and eventually took it off of that stock.

The Mtn Rifle stock has had three different actions in it and all three have fit very well = no signs of stress. The problem with that stock is the thickness of the grip and forearm make it feel like a club to me. My .223 and .243 have both shot just as well in it as they did in other stocks.

I really should try selling the HS and either sell or take a rasp to the B&C. I am a bit scared about cutting through the shell if I should decide to cut down the B&C. I will eventually probably end up with both in a McM Mtn Rifle stock as that is my favorite for deer hunting and a walking varmint rifle.

Don’t start cutting too much on a laid up fiberglass stock. I’ve done some fitting and minor cutting on those. Gotta be careful.

DF

Here's another reason I don't think it is ALWAYS necessary to skim-bed bedding blocks. This is the very first 5-shot group I fired at 100 yards from a slightly used Ruger American Predator, purchased off the Campfire Classifieds. The only modification I made on the rifle was to take the trigger apart and snip a coil off the spring, reducing the pull to a pretty crisp 2.5 pounds. The barrel was adequately free-floated, since the stock was one of the stiffer models brought out 2-3 years after the first RARs.

Thanks to plenty of experience with the 6.5 Creedmoor, I loaded 140-grain Berger VLDs with 41.5 grains of H4350. That's a 5-shot group, not 3-shot, which measured .33 inch.

RAR's have a pair of V-blocks inserted the stock, at either end of the receiver. Dunno if the rifle would have shot better if I'd skim-bedded them, but I doubt if I could.

Have owned and fooled with several other RARs in chamberings from .223 to .308, and while none has shot quite like this, I also can't remember one that did not groups three shots into 1/2" consistently with more than one load--often with factory ammo.

I would LOVE to have an aluminum block or pillar'd (including McMillan) rifle shoot without bedding. Really. I've tried every one in the hope "this is the one!" They all needed, and shot better after, bedding.

The way that one is engineered, I don't see how skim bedding would add anything.

Looks good, shoots good...

DF

DF,

On the other hand, I would be willing to bet that quite a few of the folks who believe it's always necessary to skim-bed bedding blocks have rarely (if ever) fired a Ruger American.

Probably not. Or studied how it's bedded. It's a real neat system, doesn't need any "bubba smithing" to improve it. In fact, it doesn't need anything but some good loads and half decent trigger puller.

DF

The V block type would not benefit much if any with bedding. The more standard round or flat type can benefit from skim bedding, in my limited experience.

Yes, it can--emphasis on CAN.

But as with many aspects of rifle shooting, I prefer to shoot the rifle first to see how it groups/fouls/etc. before making modifications. This started with reading Jim Carmichael many years ago.

My job involves testing a lot of different rifles, and for the past few many new variations on the basic concept called "bedding block" have appeared, many in very accurate European hunting rifles designed to compete (at least to a certain extent) with the more affordable American-made rifles that appeared during the period. Most of these rifles with non-conventional bedding blocks/systems have shot very well right out of the box, often producing the half-inch groups that seem to be almost every hunter's desire these days.

From these results I am beginning to suspect that the traditional bedding-block back-up to the standard recoil lug at the front of the action may not be the most consistently accurate way of doing things (which if I had been paying attention more during the previous years, might have been true all along). Certainly most of the techniques involved in "accurizing" bolt-action rifles evolved due to the conventional recoil-lug system, including what many people still call "glass bedding," despite the fact that many epoxies used for bedding do not contain fiberglass anymore. In fact, much of the aftermarket stuff designed to accurize rifles, such as over-sized recoil lugs for Remington-type bolt actions, is meant to overcome flaws in the system.

Some of this was solved, of course, when benchrest gunsmiths started epoxying actions inside the stock, which may or may not be another indicator.

In 1977 I built a full-length v-block system for my 40X. This block was thick enough that it replaced most of the wood in the factory 40xb-BR stock. It worked well enough and worked the same with or without some epoxy over it. The thing was, it fit the action VERY well. I hasten to add, the rifle really started performing at top levels after I glued it into a Brown Precision stock so the block was kind of time wasted.
Twenty years later, I built another block for a Model 70 prone rifle. This block was installed in a McMillan stock and was done as a prototype for a couple I was making for customers. This block is skim bedded over it so the aluminum is really just a filler. If the block is a real good fit to the receiver, I think it will work as well as most bedding but it is unlikely to produce BR level accuracy. GD

For those unfamiliar with the RAR bedding blocks, here's a photo:

What pizzies me off is that now there are many $3-800 dollar rifles that shoot as well or even better than several $1-5,000 dollar rifles I have. Improvements in technology and production have come a long way. Better barrels and bedding are the key ingredient I think.

Yep, that's my experience.

The early experience of many "mature" shooters (and I include myself in that group) was with a pretty similar group of rifles. The bedding of a Remington 700 does't differ all that much from a Winchester Model 70, despite the shape of the actions. Both have the front action screw behind the recoil lug. Many recent bolt-actions use very different "lug" and bedding systems.

And Colonel Whelen thought a rifle that grouped into one inch was truly exceptional, although this is based on ten shot groups so still may be true.

How can my box stock tupperware $900 Kimber 280AI 84L shoot as well but weigh less than my custom handbuilt ($2K in parts before scope) Rem 700s and M70s with premium barrels, stocks, triggers, etc plus 80 hours of my shop time?

If this were a poker game, I would suspect cheating.


Look, it still has the price tag on it.

The rifles that have me rethinking receiver/stock bedding are the Tikkas...at least in a hunting rifle accuracy sense. I mean how in the hell does that round nub of the 595 constitute a recoil lug?.. or in the case of the T-3 that little piece of steel embedded in the stock and fitting up into the slot in the receiver?
How come no one’s thought to sandwich a “real” lug between the receiver and barrel shoulder?

I'd call it the Minnie Pearl rifle.

I think stiffer receivers are what really makes the difference

Why would that upset you? Technology has improved firearms production and accuracy. I want a $300 rifle that shoots bugholes! It's better barrels, better triggers, better stock material, better bedding, better scopes, better bullets, better powders, better primers, and better brass. Give that to a talented shot and you've got magic.

Even the so called "cheap rifles" will out shoot most of the rifles of yesteryear. . They are cheaper and faster to build. Some guys want the beauty of a wooden stocked rifle paired with accuracy. To get that will cost big money. In the end though, most people care more about small groups from a low cost rifle than good looks. By God, she's ugly, but the woman rifle can cook!

Man will continue to chase bugholes, but it took more work when the primary stock material was wood. As an action cradle, wood is finicky. If Townsend Whelen was around today, he would be packing a synthetically stocked, aluminum bedded rifle.

Yes, he generally shot 10-round groups--but it was also unusual to find a rifle that would put them all into an inch, or close to it, when he started writing over a century ago. Improvements have been continuous since then, including bullets, powders, actions, barrels and bedding. Oh, and scopes!

I usually use 10-shot groups when testing prairie dog rifles, but not so much to determine accuracy but see how they react as the barrel heats up--which they always do on a big dog town. It's common for many of today's factory rifles to put 10 in 3/4" inch or under, right out of the box, even with factory ammo--and sometimes even less.