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

It's a shame that it takes so much work to get a Ruger to shoot and even then........

Short bus speaks again.......................................................

Northern Dave,
I may have read it wrong but I believe the tape ring on the barrel either at the fore end tip or back closer to the action body acts to shim the action up enough to float the barrel. Then the epoxy cures making a now permanent shim.
The card is just a test before doing the actual glue bedding to test for results of no tip pressure.
It does seem that some stocks still may require a bit of material removal on the side or tip of the channel to get a fit that works for the mag well or bottom metal and allows the free float.

Hi Bob B257, when I do these at home I relieve the barrel channel for floating clearance with the action resting firmly in the inletting as it was fit from the factory. I do not shim up the action or develop a raised bed in the inletting area to carry the action higher in the stock.

Through a series of refitting, observing and slowly trimming the barrel channel I do my best to let the barreled action rest into the inletting naturally and cutting the barrel channel clearance to where the barrel wants to be.

I trim my barrel channels slowly with sand paper. I'll usually use about a 60 to 80 grit paper wrapped around a common deep well socket that fits the barrel channel the best. The deepwell socket is basically a sanding block for me.

The band of tape I use on the barrel at the tip of the forend is to help hold the barreled action straight & true in the stock as the wet bedding dries.

The answer is, because the sole purpose of bedding an action is to stress relieve the lock up of the action to the stock and eliminate and binding/flexing/distrotion stresses that may occur from the action settling into the stock after repreated firing or, if exposed to weather conditions that effect the stock.

If you put any type of shim there, it only effects the point of contact, whereas bedding takes the place of wood as the contact point for the action contact and lock up points. When the bedding compound dries, it has confromed to a missor image of the action contact points so that the perfect fit between them, eliminates any binding or stress during that lock up. It also stabilizes the lock up so that thescrews are far less likely to loosten over time.

When I bed an action, I lightly skim away the wood with a dremmel so allow more beding compound to be used. I only use Devcon Steel as it does not shrink as much as substitutes and I haev foudn it stable after nearly 20 years with some rifles I have bedded.

As Dave has stated, I also do the tang area as well as an inch around the front lock screw and you can choose your method of supporting the barrel in the free floated channel whether you choose tape, business card or a drop of bedding compound the day before you actually bed the action.

It is scary until you try it. After that you will be doing everything you can get your hands on until you get sick of it. I don't keep records any more but in one bad year, I bedded over 50 stocks.

John

Just a vote for Dave's method. I had to remove what I considered to be a considerable amount of wood from a Richard's Micro-Fit laminated stock's channel to get my Mark X Mauser barreled action in there and free floated. The barrel, though, had uneven gaps on either side when the action was screwed in. Prior to bedding, I used the tape ring; after bedding, it was centered in channel and consistently shoots under 3/4". This sticky is worth its weight in gold--probably has helped hundreds like me. Thanks, Dave!

Very glad to hear it fremont.

Dave, ya didn't use J.B. Weld like Sean? I'm aghast, good job buddy.

Maybe next time I'll go with the JB but I'll try to keep it from oozing up into the action...

(It's funny NOW)

I wasn't gonna go there. Glad you did.

At least I think enough time has passed to where it might be funny now.

I could be wrong

I'm looking at bedding two M48 Yugo Mausers that I recently got from a passed relative. He had previously bought NIB Boyd walnut stocks for both. Looks like Acraglas comes in a 2-rifle set; hope I can work fast enough! Anyhow, was looking at the Acraglas .pdf file from Brownell's and they said two new-to-me statements that I thought were strange.

1. Don't bed the barrel channel at the same time you do the rest of the rifle (why not?)

2. Secure the action into the stock with surgical tubing or large rubber bands. Before--when using their single-use kit--I turned in the action screws until tight then back off slightly. Isn't that good enough?

JB Weld actually works very well, espcially the Marine version..

It shrinks very little on curring, cures hard and holds up to high temperatures...

Edited to show bedding under the barrel of a Howa..Stock is a pillar bedded Hogue and I wanted to just bed the first 1 1/2" of the barrel while adding some epoxy to the forearm to stiff it up...job worked a treat and was a notiable improvement with consistancy...

VA had some minor issues with his bedding experience Pete, which is what we were poking a little fun about, not so much the JB itself but some technical difficulties.

Hmmm ..... Im tempted to try it on my very expensive rifle..

Why not 2 or 3 "very expensive" rifles?

Nice job Dave.

I used JB Weld (marine) for clearing up some clearance issues in a Remington Rolling block rifle - worked quite well.

Hey, this is like, the most awesome thread ever. I just bought virtually the same rifle. I have reworked the trigger myself, floated the barrel and pillar bedded the stock. I was just contemplating about whether I wanted to be brave enough to tackle the glass bedding job. After seeing this thread, no worries. It's gonna be balls to the wall and here we go. Thanks so much for this thread. I just discovered this website and forum a week ago. I can see that this forum could become my new favorite forum. Kudos to this forum.

I just read all 24 pages of your post and the pics and things. Not that I'm a knowitall or anything, but I have 3 Ruger 77's, and on 2 of them, a 257 Roberts Hawkeye and a 300 RCM, I had the triggers replaced with Timneys and the muzzles crowned. I then took them home and floated the barrel and pillar bedded the stocks. They will shoot slightly better than 1" groups at 200 yards with handloads. Anyway, my point is that the gunsmith that did the muzzle crown jobs said just about every mass manufactured rifle made, and especially Ruger will benefit from a re-crown, so that is something you may want to consider to pull them groups in even tighter. My 3rd Hawkeye is awaiting my return from 2 weeks of army training and will recieve a bedding job thanks to your wonderful post. Just for kicks, I'm gonna give it a whirl without a re-crown, but will have that done before hunting season.

Thanks man, I'll keep that in mind.

In all fairness I haven't really put enough effort into ... well, no effort into hand loading, So I'll go after that first. Hopefully this summer.