The last hole

hole at 12

stock and hold

good enough.

there is such a

Bummer, that eau chitte moment after some investment in labor.

I am attempting to do stress-free pillar bedding of a rifle. I've never done it before so I'm going *very* slowly. I think I'm ready for final goo (epoxy) but I won't do that until I've slept on it. I'd really prefer not to have this be an oopsie. It's not an expensive rifle but I'd still like to get it right.

Traditional goo has been acraglass, but I'm using Devcon 10110. Fitch and I call it d22 because 10110 in binary is 22 in decimal. (b10110=d22) It's very dense steel-filled epoxy used and advocated by a guy who beds a lot of competition benchrest rifles.

I'm hoping to get below half-MOA (minute of arc) accuracy, i.e. groups shot from 100 yards with max center-to-center distance of under half an inch from this rifle. The rifle is a Savage "package rifle", an inexpensive "consumer" off-the-rack rifle in .243. It's a sporter, not a benchrest rifle, but it's been a shooter as found so I really hope with some pucker that I improve it rather than screwing it up.

More when (if) I can get it apart after the goo cures, get it reassembled correctly, get the scope re-mounted and re-zeroed and see how it shoots. It shot about 1 MOA before with 70 gn bullets, didn't do as well with 100 gn because the rifling isn't quite steep enough to be optimal for 100 gn. I don't care, 70 gn is ample for target and varmints. I'd use a heavier caliber if I hunted deer.

If this turns out well then my next project will be my .22-250.

Don Foreman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Be advised that many Savage rifles are most accurate when the barrel is free-floated.

My (now "ancient" @ 30 years old) 110DL .30/06 was lucky to get 1.5 MOA from the box but, having floated the barrel, it'll provide me with 1-hole

Earlier I'd had a 110MDL in .264 Win. Mag. that had given similar results. (It was stolen from my apartment. 8-{ )

Be sure that the action, itself, is snug but be prepared to sand out the barrel channel. (A sheet of carbon paper makes both a good marker AND a good gauge.)

side of the

Oh well, I looked at the print for the front barrel plate, it has 1/2" holes for the barrel and no threads. I can salvage some of my work by driling though the tapped holes and thinning the plate.

What are you using as a release agent? I have used PAM the cooking spray.

I reworked my Garand's stock with steel reinforced epoxy I bought at a boat shop. I'm sure you have seen a Garand, the action is held into the stock by the trigger group which compresses the wood. I was a bit nervous about the action comming back out after the epoxy set. Pam worked.

Savage makes good rifles. Almost bought one 10 years ago, .338 win mag, stainless heavy barrel with a laminated stock. Unfortuantly, I was at a gun show with my uncles brother in law that had a ffl. He of course piped up he could get me a better deal on it. Well he couldn't, it must have been a special run since it wasn't in the catalog. :(

I was listening to Gresham's Guntalk and one of the guests was pointing out that the only area where firearms sales is a bit soft since the election is the better grade of shotguns.

Keep us posted on your progress.

Wes

round disk with

pin hole at 12

stock and hold

good enough.

pitch is same.

there is such a

side of the

Use plenty of mold release. It is a truly awful feeling the next morning when you go to unscrew the action screws, after the epoxy has set up, only to find that they don't move.....

Cheers,

John D. Slocomb (jdslocombatgmail)

I was careful to do that. No part of the barrel now touches the stock.

round disk with

pin hole at 12

stock and hold

good enough.

pitch is same.

there is such a

hole on other

side of the

Separate pillar posts epoxied into the stock.

Synlube 1000, per Darrell Hollander's DVD on pillar-bedding rifles.

I spent some quality time with the M1 Garand and the very similar M-14 many years ago.

Don Foreman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

With even the slightest hint of good luck you'll end up with a real "tack driver".

Try the Sierra 85 HPBT with enough H450 to get around 28-2900 fps (I think , should go look at the manual ...) .That bullet shoots well with several powders in my Interarms Mark X . Speer 90 gr HotCor shoots well too . Those

group which

I figured you had. Thank you for serving.

Wes

I spaced the action from the stock using several thicknesses of 10-mil PVC pipe tape wrapped around the barrel and applied under the tang. Nobody in MN ever heard of this tape but I guess it's common in CA and I found it online. Shipping cost more than the roll of tape, about 10 bux total.

I applied several thicknesses of tape to tang and barrel until the action and barrel were level with the stock but everywhere clear of it by at least 12 mils as tested with 4 thicknesses of paper sliding underneath. Also made sure that the action was a teense above center to avoid getting it locked in by epoxy. I did some milling and sanding of the stock to get there. A very useful tool was a 3/4" dia ball end mill from Grizzly, about 20 bux.

I then jacked the pillars into place using studs made for that purpose. The holes in the pillars are N-drill dia (.302" I think) while the mounting bolts are 1/4-28, so the bolts will not touch the interior walls of the pillars in service. The studs are .301" dia aside from where they're threaded 1/4-28. Single-use studs, made to fit this rifle and stock. Only took a few enjoyable minutes to make them at the lathe.

The idea is to have the primary points of contact between stock and action be the pillars, with the action in intimate contact with stock (and bedding) while the barrel touches nothing. The objective is to approach zero variability from shot to shot. Doesn't much matter where the rifle shoots relative to boresight, what matters is how consistently it can do it for a few rounds after a fouling round and perhaps a sighting round.

The rear pillar ended up just slightly proud of the stock, maybe 10 thou, down in the trigger guard pocket underneath the stock because that bolt also engages the trigger guard. This fit wasn't an accident but a result of some careful measurements with an Etalon dial caliper. Digital calipers are wonderful but the Etalon is my goto when I want the best a caliper can do.

The Savage package rifles use a plastic trigger guard but I'm replacing that with a metal one from I forget where but could find it if you want to know. It was 20 bux.

The goo is in as of tonight. It's curing as I type. I didn't get nearly as much squeeze-out as I expected, though I thought I had plenty of goo in there. I made up 100 grams of goo after figuring that

This is a first-time learning exercise. This rifle was selected for that with the notion that pillar-bedding it (however ineptly) can't hurt, probably will help and I'm bound to learn by doing. The rifle I really want to get right is a Savage BVSS .22-250.

I am not gonna touch my little CZ527 American in .223. It already shoots 0.5 MOA off the bench with loads it likes, though it's a lightweight sporter rather than a bench or varmint rifle. Great fun to shoot from kneeling, sitting or with bipod, can do headshots on whistlepigs inside of 200 meters and punch Necco wafers at the range for fun. It's a fun little rifle, has fetched a big grin from everyone who's tried it. I'm very glad I bought it when I did.

Not so blinkin' fast, hombre! My next one may turn out to be a nice job, but I won't be posting any photos of this one!

This rifle has an internal magazine rather than using a detachable box magazine. The DVD said to pack the hole with modelling clay. Well, that's a buncha clay and I can imagine what a joy it would be to clean out of there, so I figured the goo could just leak in there a little and I could remove it with the mill.

Problem was, because it had somewhere to go down it didn't hydraulically squish up and out in that region. Made cleanup much easier, only used about 20 cue-tips, but I didn't get good bedding in the region alongide the mag cavity. I don't think that will matter because it'd only be a couple of thin strips on rather thin wood -- but it does look pretty amateurish. Well, hell, I *am* an amateur. It won't show at all when the rifle is assembled. On the next one I will fill that magazine cavity with something.

I got nice-looking void-free bedding under the action away from the magazine cavity, near and around both pillars and around the recoil lug. I think that should suffice for shooting purposes which is the reason for doing it in the first place. If it doesn't shoot better than before I can always go back and add more goo to get the missed regions -- but I really doubt that it'd make any difference in performance. I think the main thing is to have the rifle solidly mounted and bedded around the pillars, good fore-and-aft capture of the recoil lug, with the stock not touching the barrelled action anywhere else.

I was pleased and a bit relieved to see how easily the barrelled action separated from the epoxied stock. I did use release agent thoroughly and liberally. Couple of smart whacks with a deadblow soft hammer on the mounting studs was all it took to pop it loose.

Might be a few days before I get to the range to see how it works.

This particular rifle seems to prefer 70-gn bullets. Rifling pitch is