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One caveat to Brad's message: Cheap, off-brand stuff may not be so good. Who knows how old the resin is, how it was stored, how many hands the resin has been through, or if it was rejected for poor quality somewhere along the line and sold off cheap. Same for hardener components. And who knows if the formulator put together the system looking for good quality or just used the cheapest available components. Good enough for the dollar store and usual consumer use but that's about it. Stick to reputable brands.

Absolutely... tried to convey that point but prolly wasn't too successful. Devcon, Acraglass, Marine Tex, the chit in a five gallon bucket in my garage that's been around fifteen years and has been used on a couple dozen rifles... all good.

This stuff just isn't that hard, but some seem determined to make it so...

So it seems the only concensus is there is no concensus. With that out of the way has an epoxy every been produced/blended for the specific needs of bedding rifles or are we just using what makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside?

I prefer the devcon putty as number one because Im not comfortable with the 5:1 mix on Marine Tex. I have bedded most with JB weld and do not feel the need to dremel everything out and have not seen any problems through a few thousand rounds. I know a couple dozen rifles does not match the thousands a professional is doing but it seems if something was going to go bad based on the bedding product it would have popped up by know.

Ultimately, within reason, the guy doing the bedding is probably more important than the compound selected.

I don't think it can be said any better than that.

Well, Devcon has been manufacturing (not just blending) epoxy for 50+ years...JB Weld is a family owned business that's been manufacturing their own epoxy for over 30 years...should I go on? By the way...JB Weld was invented by a guy in his home shop and his first customers were auto repair shops. Your statement that it was originally designed to be mixed with sand for chemical resistance is total hog-wash.

I will agree that technique is huge part of the game...but not all epoxies are appropriate for all jobs. Devcon alone manufactures a vast array of different types of epoxies designed for specific applications.

You have no idea what you're talking about...

Well...you were totally wrong about the number of companies manufacturing epoxy, and you were totally wrong about JB-Weld...so who is it that's uninformed?

http://jbweld.net/aboutus.php

http://www.devcon.com/corporate/index.cfm

Checkmate!


Brad's move!

MtnHtr

PS. Humor intended post!

You just don't get it... JB weld IS NOT mfging epoxy... they're buying the raw materials and blending them. They can technically call it "manufacturing" because they're changing the raw material, but they're not doing the initial refining. They're buying the raw material and repackaging it.. so yeah they're a manufacturer, but they're buying their raw material from a supplier who's getting it form the source manufacturer.

That's about the silliest argument I have heard in awhile. Sorry... but JB-Weld, Devcon, and many others do "manufacturer" their own epoxy products.

There are 100's of companies world wide that manufacture the raw materials to make epoxies. These companies DO NOT make or sell epoxy...they just make the materials that other companies (like JB-Weld and Devcon) use to make epoxy. Dupont is probably one of the largest and well known of these companies.

There are also 100's of companies around the world that buy those raw materials and formulate and manufacture the finished products that are sold every day around the world under various brand names.

Do you think McMillan actually manufactures the fiber glass used in their stocks...or that Remington makes the steel used in their rifles?

Gents, this has been an interesting and informative discussion, but it's getting pretty deep, at least for me.

Now, I've just been doing something I should have done long ago, making up a finish test walnut board. I've made four sections, and rubbed in Acraglas and G-1, while heating it. Going to try a variety of coats, then oil finish on top. This stock finishing business is akin to alchemy. Maybe I should wear a pointed wizard's hat, and apply the finish by the light of a full moon!

So much to learn.

Paul

So you're saying they're refining petroleum into epoxy, correct?

As old Struther Martin said to Paul Newman..."What we have here is a failure to communicate."

Brad...Epoxy that we buy is a formulated product made of various ingredients, not a product refined from petroleum. Like just about every manufacturer of any product in the world, the companies that "formulate" and sell the finished product do not manufacture all the ingredients used in their finished product...and the companies that manufacture the ingredients to make epoxy do not normally manufacture and sell epoxy as a finished product.

Each company making and selling epoxies has their own formulas they use to produce the finished product...and they formulate them to meet the needs for specific purposes. The epoxies you used for floor coverings were formulated to be highly resistant to abrasion and cracking so they would hold up under people walking on them all day long. Other epoxies are formulated to be totally sterile and non toxic so they can be used in food processing equipment. Heat cured epoxies are formulated to be more heat resistant than those that cure at room temperature, etc, etc.

Epoxies, just like paint, are formulated for specific purposes. The paint you use in your living room wouldn't perform too well on the engine block of your car.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoxy

My information is obviously old... when I was buying epoxies by the thousands of gallons there were three primary suppliers in the world. We bought from what we thought of as "blenders"... obviously things have changed!

Many times things don't change...we just learn more about them than we knew before.

Wikipedia Jockeying aside, I still think you're nuts with the idea a rifle's bedding is a high demand application

I don't recall saying that it was...only that it had certain requirements that may or may not be formulated into "all" epoxies.

No, but there was an article in this months "Muzzle Blasts" (The NMRLA magazine) about using it to mount scopes temporarily on muzzleloaders for load testing. Apparently loads better than anything else they've tried.

Mtn Hunter,

The step by step post you did several years ago detailing your bedding method would go a long way here. It was the purple 7 mag build that you documented.

I have to agree that the person doing the bedding yeilds 90% of the results.

It was a great post, and I was lucky to have printed it.

GB

In their catalog Brownell's recommended Black Max (Loctite 380) for securing replacement shotgun beads and I took the hint. More resilient than plain cyanoacrylic and all the replacement beads have stayed stuck so far. Expensive in the little tubes and not a lot of shelf life, at least once opened.