More on this wood bedding block thing and my reasoning for doing it on this little rimfire.
1st, this gun was built for one of our dealership shops that we do a ton of work for. It was as much of a "hold the beer n watch this" as it was anything else. They give me a long leash when goofing around with stuff like this.
My thoughts: First, I grew up in this trade shooting service rifle while in the Marine Corps. I was 19 years old shooting on the Camp Pendelton SR team when I first met Mid Tompkins and Nancy Gallagher. I can't count the number of times Mid shared his opinion that he liked a wood stock more than a composite. Then later in life comes Neal Johnson, Lonnes Wigger, yada, yada. The list goes on... Next, my Dad. He was an electronics geek in the AF in the first part of his career. That meant our house had model trains, RC stuff, and a ridiculous stereo, all of which rubbed off on me as well. I spent the better part of a decade putting together a Class A home audio setup. While shopping for a high-end turntable stylus I was blown away by a company in Germany that sells one that is encased in a slug of machined English Walnut. The reason is what got my attention; Wood manages big words like resonation, amplitude, frequency, and harmonics better than just about anything. English walnut being exceptional at it.
So, take the words of Mid Tompkins, Neal, Lonnes, and my predilection for vinyl and we decided to conduct a little experiment. -Machine a bedding block from walnut and see how it goes.
That's what I did and the thought train behind it. The client loves it and performance has had zero negative impact thus far.