Wood stock prep for bedding

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bear slayer

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I just recieved my acra glass gel bedding kit and in the instructions it says to to chisel or cut out pieces from the stock to provide greater surface contact for strength. i'm just wondering how deep and where i should make the cuts.Any help is appreciated.thanks
 
A thin coat of bedding over the wood seals the stock, but nothing more. Remove wood where you are going to bed. The bedding compound should be more or less uniform in thickness. 1/8" of bedding is not unreasonable. You don't mention what sort of rifle you are bedding, but for a typical bolt action rifle you would bed the tang, the receiver ring, recoil lug, barrel breech, and perhaps a forend pad, if you aren't going to float the barrel. Some will bed even more of the action. Usually the trigger guard unit is bedded as well, and pillars of bedding or metal may surround the action screws.
 
Remove any finish and just ding up the wood. You just want there to be a rough surface for the glue to grab.

Pretend its your boss and go for it.

On second thoughts, maybe just your kids. Don't want to break the stock :)
Jerry
 
I would recommend taking it easy on removing wood, at least where you can see it at the edges on the top of the stock.... nothing worse for resale value...

I am sure you could simply rough up the surfaces and skim bed the action without any stress, float the barrel and it would shoot as well as if you hogged the wood out and used the whole kit to bed the action.
 
The orig question was how much to 'rough' up the surface. Removing large quantities of wood is actually counter productive.

The bedding compound itself has little structural properties and cannot sustain recoil forces if too thick. That max thickness really depend on the type of product used but a good rule of thumb is 1/8" to 3/16". Some products will simply crack or fragment.

You are unlikely to see any ill effects except the rifle will throw flyers and drive you nuts. Also, the action screws will need constant retightening.

You want the wood/plastic as close to the bottom of the action as possible. In fact, having a hardened point like a pillar touching the bottom of the action will ensure the action doesn't bend when you tighten the action screws.

The bedding just fills in the gap...

Jerry
 
Dennis and Jerry,


I kind of have the opposite school of thought on how much wood to remove and I'd like your thoughts on it.

First off I use Marine Tex and I hog out with a dremel with a burr cutter on it so I can make lots of holes and angles and I've found that you can keep under the "rim" of the wood so you never see the bedding.

I've been of the impression that more is better and even so far as to basically form pillars out of it around the action screws, then drill the holes out larger so the screws are free all around and make sure the area of the recoil lug has lots in it. Often I'll do it in more than one step then roughen it up again between lays so the final one doesn't shrink to any extent.

My thoughts are that since it is so many times stronger than wood, is impervious to just about anything and doesn't compress like wood does I always, with in reason, take out as much wood as I can and definitely don't skim coat it.

I have never had a problem with action screws coming loose using this method or with bedded in aluminium tube pillars, and I always bed the top of the pillars since they don't seat on the action 100% till they are.

Maybe acra glass isn't up to the same standard as Marine tex and is more compressible than wood?? and that's why you say to skim coat it or maybe it's not strong enough and will crack. I have had many hard kicking rifles out of their stocks after bedding them like this and I've never seen any cracks and I've built up parts with marine tex then ground, drilled and tapped. It is GOOD stuff.

Bear S: I would advise bedding the back of the lug by putting layers of tape on the front, bottom and sides so it doesn't over locate the action and so it comes out of the stock easily and free floating the barrel for starters.

Mike
 
pac11 said:
Dennis and Jerry,


I kind of have the opposite school of thought on how much wood to remove and I'd like your thoughts on it.

First off I use Marine Tex and I hog out with a dremel with a burr cutter on it so I can make lots of holes and angles and I've found that you can keep under the "rim" of the wood so you never see the bedding.

I've been of the impression that more is better and even so far as to basically form pillars out of it around the action screws, then drill the holes out larger so the screws are free all around and make sure the area of the recoil lug has lots in it. Often I'll do it in more than one step then roughen it up again between lays so the final one doesn't shrink to any extent.

My thoughts are that since it is so many times stronger than wood, is impervious to just about anything and doesn't compress like wood does I always, with in reason, take out as much wood as I can and definitely don't skim coat it.

I have never had a problem with action screws coming loose using this method or with bedded in aluminium tube pillars, and I always bed the top of the pillars since they don't seat on the action 100% till they are.

Maybe acra glass isn't up to the same standard as Marine tex and is more compressible than wood?? and that's why you say to skim coat it or maybe it's not strong enough and will crack. I have had many hard kicking rifles out of their stocks after bedding them like this and I've never seen any cracks and I've built up parts with marine tex then ground, drilled and tapped. It is GOOD stuff.

Bear S: I would advise bedding the back of the lug by putting layers of tape on the front, bottom and sides so it doesn't over locate the action and so it comes out of the stock easily and free floating the barrel for starters.

Mike
Click to expand...

I don't think there is anything wrong with your procedure. I have also made pillars using Agra-Glas. I think the purpose of bedding correctly has more to do with accuracy than strength....a proper stress free fit between the stock and the action with either method will do that ... I have never used Marine Tex but there is nothing wrong with Agra-Glas... it was made specifically for bedding firearms and has an extremely small rate of shrinkage when it cures. Lots of other expoxies do not.
 
As mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with what you are doing. I do consider it overkill and will add unnecessary weight to the stock. I do put holes in the inletting area but use a wood pick and just stab the wood.

Personally, I like my rifles to be only as strong and as heavy as necessary. That doesn't mean weak, wet noddles but certainly don't need a baseball bat either.

The wood has proven to be adequately strong for the last few hundred years, it is unlikely to get weaker today. However, inletting has become far more generous in dimensions.

This is what bedding is resolving. To make the action and stock fit as one. That's it. If the bedding is required to strengthen the stock in anyway, the stock will fail.

The reason your bedding hasn't shown any issues with cracking is because the underlying stock is more then up to the task you ask it.

All of these 'solids' impregnated epoxy are brittle, just like concrete. Without a solid base (stock itself) or some 'fibre/rebar' to hold the matrix together, it will crumble over time.

We no longer use reg. epoxies because they are too flexible allowing the action to wobble. They will also compress or shear with that vibration eventually breaking apart.

The method you use ties the bedding very well into the stock. You are right, the bedding will not move.

However, it imparts little strength TO the stock. Just be careful not to remove too much wood/material or else the stock will fail. Once that happens, you will see cracks to the bedding.

Jerry
 
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