Hi there, I soon will be attempting to bed an action for the first time. Its a Remington 700 action going into a new boyds Laminated stock. I was wondering if any of my fellow CGN's can help a brother out with some advice on a good kit or compound to buy and procedure for installing. Thank you kindly. cheers!
Just went thru this for the first time myself with a lot of help from the thread that Alpheus provided.
The job itself isn't that hard - just make sure you go thru the full process step by step in your mind (or at least without the epoxy!) a time or two before mixing up the putty.
Ingredients-wise, Kiwi neutral shoe polish, modelling clay, and a dremel tool with a round wood-cutting bit are the essentials. Popsicle sticks and q-tips are good for mixing and applying putty and then removing the excess, respectively. Taping the stock to prevent devcon spills is cheap insurance - tape the bottom as well as the top and sides, as you may get some on your hands and then onto unexpected parts of the stock.
As regards where you do want putty to go, I didn't use tape on the recoil lug, and am very happy with the results - some folks prefer to tape the muzzle side and the left/right sides, but I'd go with just the shoe polish on the front, back, and sides of the lug. The tighter the lug and action sit in the bedding, the more stable the action will be in its new cradle.
Last piece of advice: make sure your action is at 12:00 in relation to the stock when you're taping it in place for the devcon to set up - I accidentally bedded mine with about a 5 degree list to starboard (action leans slightly to the right when looking at the rifle from behind). Not a huge problem, but my trigger is now quite close to the left wall of the inlet/trigger guard. Testing with a bubble level on the base is a good sanity check for this.
Good luck!
