Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Cheap and fast glassbedding for a 22lr

Have a CZ452 varmint in 22wmr with a brooks trigger job that would shoot hot and cold. Sometimes just around 1.5 inches and sometimes up to 3 inches at 100 yds with 3shot groups and maybe even a tad bigger with 5shot groups. Decided to glassbed it but didn't have anymore acraglas gel, just JB weld and didn't feel like dealing with hassle as I find JB weld more messy. Decided to try faststeel epoxy putty stick( been thinking about this idea for a while) as its a rimfire and the recoil is neglible. Prepared the stock by drilling a bunch of holes for a good mechanical lock and simply kneaded the putty with my fingers, pushed it into the tang area where the pillar goes and also up by the receiver same as a standard glass bed job. You have to work fast with this stuff, like less than 5 minutes.Sprayed the entire action with PAM and filled the receiver and tang bolt holes with clay. As soon as the epoxy was put in place I inserted the action into stock and pushed down till it was seated and then bolted the action down under slight pressure. About six minutes later I unscrewed the bolts and lifted the action out of the stock. The stuff had already set which i could tell by the unused portion which had already started to harden considerably. It looked perfect. I then cut off the excesss stuff that had been squeezed out everywhere with a razor blade and cleaned out bolt holes with a dremel tool and drill bit. Cleaned up the action and removed the pam and then reinstalled it again with just enough pressure to solidly seat the action. The entire gun was just glassbedded in less than a hour, sort of like glassbedding with playdoh. Let it sit two days to make sure it was completley cured and tightened up the bolts today and took her out to shoot. Put 60 rounds through it today in 5 shot groups and it shot around .75-1.50inch groups at 100yds which is probably as good as I can shoot, at least without a higher power scope than 14x. Will see how it holds up but I checked the bedding and no problems and I foresee none as the stuff is steel reinforced and the recoil is nothing. Just thought it might be something others might be interested in for their rimfires. Let you know if I encounter any problems,my only fear is that it may be too brittle but seems fine. Sorry for the length but maybe someone will find it interesting.going to try it on an old semi auto 22 next to see how it holds up to semi auto recoil. take care.

A friend of mine uses the stuff for high power rifles. Not something I would do but he says it works.

You have to work fast. That's the basic point. Glad it worked for you.

how do you bolt the action down if the holes are filled with clay? i've never bedded a rifle before and i''m trying to figure out all your steps.

You can use big wood clamps.

Not that I've done it, but why not use any old good quality epoxy for bedding even a centerfire? Even the cheap stuff will be way harder/tougher than the wood it's going into. That said, I have always used Acraglas Gel.

In my proffesional life of cabinet work and wooden boat building I use huge quantities of West System epoxy. I am going to bed my next project with that stuff thickened with colloidal silica. I swear Brownell's uses colloidal silica to create their Acraglas Gel.

Colloidal silica? Never heard of it, but have heard of West System and use a lot of other big-bottle resins. Please, let use know what happens?

If one wants a barreled action to be bedded in a completely relaxed state, he should simply sit the metal in the stock and let the bedding agent harden. Installing and torquing screws, or binding an action down with elastic or surgical tubing can undo all that one is trying to accomplish.

To assure that a barrel is floated, one might put about 2 or 3 layers of masking or electrical tape around the barrel near the end of the forearm.

Ditto here.

I don't know what the chemical make up is, other than silicon (it has the same formula as sand I'm told, but physical properties are quite different). It is a widely accepted thickening/strengthening agent mixed into epoxy and also used in other industries. I believe it's used in making refractory cement and also, believe it or not, as a filler in some candy bars. The stuff is white, powdery in nature, composed of extremely short fibres, seemingly lighter than air. It is very dangerous to breath into your lungs- a good cause of asbestiosis, but evidently not dangerous to eat. Consistency of the epoxy can be varied from runny (like warm mollases) to real thick (like peanut butter) with silica.

Hardened and cured epoxy thickened with silica is extremely hard which is why I think it'll work. (After all, aren't most, if not all, bedding compounds out there simply some form of epoxy with a thickener in it?) Is there such a thing as stock bedding being too hard?

I have used it in the past in a shallow groove running the full length of a foream in the bbl channel, as a stiffener for an otherwise very thin and whippy stock. Seems to help. Added about an ounce to the weight of the stock.