Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles DIY bedding M77 (pic heavy)

Thanks! Did this on my hawkeye in 257 roberts.. I was lucky to get a 3-5" group with anything I put down the pipe.. Floated it during the week and bedded it yesterday. Took it out today,, all 6 different loads I tried were under 2 inches and one was a cloverleaf! I must say my bedding doesnt look anywhere as good as yours does,,,, BUT IT WORKS!!!

Any additional issues doing this with a tang safety model 77?

Dave,

Very well done.
It's guys like you that make "The Fire"

Tack

It can be done.

I did one about 7 years ago for a friend. The recoil lug/leg looks intimidating, I was nervous about ending up with the reciever locked into the stock due to the angled lug.

But it worked out quite well in a factory Ruger walnut stock.

Tighter than OJ's glove but it will pop loose.



Thanks

Got an old Ruger All Weather Model 77 stainless in .300 Win. Mag. with a black Zytel stock that is not free floated (like the old pre-64 Win Model 70's).

It has the claw extractor bolt, 3 position safety & looks like a Win 70 except that it's a Ruger & is a lot tougher than any 70 ever was.

I installed a Timney trigger to replace the fence post trigger the old Rugers were noted for.

I used to shoot the 180 grain Core-Lokts in the Ruger 77 & it consistently produced 1 - 1 1/2 inch groups with them.

Put down 18 Canadian moose & several hogs with this gun.

Now it really likes the factory Win ammo loaded with 180 grain XP3 bullets & gives me a surprising 1/2 - 3/4 inch groups at 100 yards with a 3-9x40mm Leupold scope.

I don't mess with a hunting grade factory gun that is consistently (each & every group) giving me less than 1 MOA but if I ever need to re-barrel my faithful old 77 I'll use some of the pointers given in the OP.

I shoot about a dozen shots a year (4 x 3 shot groups) to check things out to see if the gun is still shooting "in the money" & I expect at that rate the barrel will outlast me.

yep, this thread has inspired me to do my .257 Compact. The last one I did was in 1980

Just got my Stevens 200 bedded into its new FT from Boyd's, so I'm reading this again waiting for it to cure enough to crack it open. I went with a pillar/recoil lug area bedding job. The rifle was floated from the factory, but the tupperware stock it came in was a flimsy POS. I was getting the 2 shots in, 1 out groups that drive me crazy, even though they were about 3/4". I'm hoping for one hole now.

This tutorial was great for someone like me that had never tried this before. Being a machinist gives me the urge to try this stuff, but without the experience of others, I'd make a wreck of it for sure. On a side note, the machinist thing came in handy for making some custom pillars.

That's awesome, I'd like to see some photos of those pillars if possible, way cool.

I'll throw some up here after I get some screws to put it together. The only screws I have for it are the adjustable length T-handles I made to use in the bedding process.

Good God. I never knew my two self-bedded RU77OM jobs were so interesting.....

Won't this thread ever die?

I sure don't care if this thing "dies" but I'd still like to see those pillars injunhed made.

Here are some semi-crappy cell pics, my decent camera is MIA. The whole goal of this rifle initially was a cheap 2nd deer gun...it's turned into a bit more than that, as I love this caliber.

This is a Stevens 200 in 7mm-08 I got for $196 out the door on a clearance at Academy....unfortunately that's the Academy that was in Joplin, MO and is gone now...add another $200 for the Nikon Monarch UCC 3-9x40, and another C-note for the stock. Not too shabby for a $500 rifle. I'll post some target pics after we go to the range Saturday evening.



The tinge of red and shiny in the center of the bedding is all that is visible of the forward pillar. The red is the remnants of the red sharpie I was using to check contact where I relived the wood around the pillar, as well as proper contact of the receiver to the pillar itself. I made the pillars .430 diameter, reamed the factory screw holes to .440, and ran a 1/2-13 tap thru them for grip. The pillars were heavily textured as well, and were faced to be .010 proud of the wood on the bottom side. A fiend of mine is gonna do his rifle in my shop over the weekend, and I plan on adding a bit more compound forward of the lug recess to turn down the suck a little on the way it looks there. It has some contact with the barrel nut, so the stability is there, but I was a little disappointed in the way it looked. The pillars were glued in first with JB Weld, and the bedding material is Devcon.



The rear pillar had to be notched for clearance of the Savage firing mechanism. I decided I wouldn't try to put any bedding material in the rear side, because I didn't want to try to get the ignition system apart, since I had done some polishing work to it, and made a new spring out of .04 piano wire. The trigger is a very crisp 3.5# now, and I didn't want to take a chance on messing it up. If it's not broke, DON'T BREAK IT is my motto.

Wow! You have a very respectable rig there! Especially considering what you have into it for cash.

Nice bench too.

Ha, like that? I finally got to move it in the house, so I figured I'd try to make it halfway presentable, even though it is upstairs and out of plain sight. I don't miss loading outside in the heat and cold, that's for sure.

As far as the rifle goes, thanks, I'm just hoping it shoots as good as it looks. I was kinda leery about the stock for $100, but it is actually pretty well done. Nice satin finish, and pretty well made.

well it's laminated and you've taken the time to fit pillars and bed the action in it with reveal In the barrel channel you should be golden. Not to mention the fact it is a stevens 200, accuracy sure shouldn't be a problem.

Hey Dave, or anyone else. If you couldnt get Devcon or similar local, what product would you use? JB weld, JB marine weld? I have some PC-11 in the closet, not sure if that would work. Id like to try to bed mine in a day or two and really dont want to mail order anything. Appreciate the thoughts.

JB weld, marine tex (gray) both work great and can be bought at just about any good hardware store.

Looked for Marine tex today at a few local stores, no one had any. Got fed up driving around thats why I figured on trying the PC-11 since I still have some left. But if JB weld is better ill grab some from my dad. Youre talkin the stuff in a tubes? Like this?



or this?



he has some of the first stuff.

I've used regular JB weld like the upper pic. It's working great and holding up on plastic and wood.

I can't see the stick version working out too well.

Use lots of paste wax for a release agent.