Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Who beds bottom metal?

I grabbed the first four hunting rigs in the safe and took the trigger guards off:

Just completed McMillan Mountain Rifle:



Bell and Carlson LVSF, 243W:



McMillan Sako Varminter:



Savage 112J single shot heavy barrel, 25-06:



When the bottom metal has to flex to fit the inletting when tightened, the action screws pull the receiver at an angle. Combine this with a tight fit in the inletting and it can induce quite a bit more stress than you'd think it could. You can easily check this with an inexpensive magnetic base dial indicator. On stocks where the contact appears to be excellent, putting some DyKem layout fluid on the inletting and snugging the bottom metal down will show how much (or how little) contact there really is....even when it feels solid.

Much like properly fitting bases to a receiver and scopes to the rings, maximizing contact area pays off in reliability and consistency.

The only time I don't bed the bottom metal is when I use the 'Holland' style pillars from Holland Gunsmithing. These have an internal 82 degree shouldered screw with an Allen headed recess that is also tapped for a short screw to hold the bottom metal on. The lower edge of the pillar is fitted slightly above the inletting so that when the bottom metal is tightened down, the bottom metal is supported by the raised circumference of the pillar and has no contact with the inletting at all. By doing this, the bottom metal/trigger guard is no longer an 'active' part of the bedding. Here's a McMillan Remington Hunter pattern stock I did recently using this style pillar. The factory bottom metal inletting and pillars were a mess with the front of the inletting being .025 higher than the rear and the pillars being loose. Since that all had to be addressed on the mill, it made sense to use the 'Holland' style pillar setup:











It turned out pretty well:



Good shootin' -Al

Larry really does stuff right. I worked with a couple of rifles he'd done and both were top notch. His bedding was well thought out and executed.

Good shootin'-Al

Good, sound, mechanical principles and basic common sense doesn't discriminate. Whether you're working with a competition rifle or a nice hunting rig, the basics still apply. In fact, when trying to wring out everything a factory-style gun has to give you....these small details may in fact be more important as you've got so little to work with from the beginning.

A good example of this is my 30BR Benchrest rig. It's not a 'glue in' as is the norm. Rather a pillar bedded bolt in using 'Holland' style pillars as referenced above on the McMillan Remington Hunter pattern hunting rig. I machined these for this specific application but the basics remain. The receiver was also fitted with a front recoil lug and the rear action screw hole machined all the way through the tang and threaded. This gave another 3 threads of action screw purchase.









Again, I encourage people to just think about what you're trying to accomplish. Add a little common sense and ask questions if you have any. We never get anywhere by just doing what we've always done...try to understand why things are done in a certain way. Being thin skinned and not learning by what others are having success with guarantees being mired down in mediocrity. Keep learning!

Good shootin' -Al

So, I'm confused! Is "Bottom Metal" her real name or is she just 'hard a**ed?



Anonymous

I'm gonna bed a few rifles to check this.

I've got a lot of rifle with shims under the bottom metal but looks like the Marinetex is coming out.

Make sure the bottom metal fits the inletting with plenty of clearance to avoid binding...something around .010 all around works good. BDL type stuff needs to have clearance all around it. On BDL style stuff, I take the hinge pin out and the floor plate off to simplify the process. A few wraps of painters tape around the bottom metal when bedding it works good. The tighter you keep the receiver into the stock as you snug the bottom metal down, the better.

Hope this helps. -Al

Did two tonight which had obvious issues with the BM deforming when the screws were tight.

Way I've always done it in the past: wrap the sides of the bottom metal with pinstripe tape and clearance the stock as necessary, put studs into the action, install the mag box to make sure it all mates up, clamp the barreled action upside down in a vice, dry fit everything, clearance more if needed, then put release agent on everything, smear the bedding compound in the stock inlet front and rear, then lower the bottom metal down.

About 1/3 of the time I seem to have a problem with breaking out a donut right around the bedding stud. I might not be waiting long enough for the epoxy reach full strength.

I will try taping it all together next time.

Pulling the hinge pin and floor plate is good idea...bedding compound seems to get up into that hinge recess anyway.

Thanks Al!

Make sure the studs don't have any threads other that enough to screw into the action....that may be why some material pulls away. I use some long cap screws and cut the head off so there's a long unthreaded shank going through the pillars. You can wrap some tape around them to center them and keep as much epoxy as possible out of the pillars. Crack these loose a couple times as the epoxy gets half way done curing.

Looking forward to your results. -Al

Yep, always tape the studs to provide clearance

Sorry I can’t find pictures, it is generally a two-stage process with the front socket part first without using the bottom plate
once this has set up reattach the bottom plate to the front socket and use this to space the trigger guard so that it opens freely

That's pretty much how I do the Rugers. -Al

Here's a couple I did. (I'm just a bubba 'smith)

First up is the Ruger M77 MK-II in a B&C Carbelite stock:



One I just finished up this weekend. M70 classic (BACO) w/ 1 pc. BM. Mickey Edge stock.