I think I did my first (deliberate) glue-in, about 1977. Prior to this, I had done a couple of near glue-ins but not on purpose! Dad had glued one in on the barrel, just ahead of the receiver but I didn't like the idea, so I had stayed with conventional pillar bedding up until '77.
At the time I was working with, and being mentored by, a fellow named Art Bourne. Art was a talented, though stubborn, gunsmith and was one of the early BR shooters in Western Canada. Art always favoured Acraglas (this was before the gel was even available) and he used it for bedding and for gluing sleeves on and so forth. Now, once Art had seized on a product or method, that was it. There was no further experimentation or discussion necessary! I, on the other hand, was a little more flexible and still listened to what others had to say. So it was that I tried various compounds for bedding and for gluing but, you know what? Acraglas still worked as well as any and better than most. It did need to have generous amounts of floc added to thicken it up, for bedding, but it worked very well as a glue. In addition, it seemed to handle exposure to Hoppes#9 better than most. Devcon degraded in the presence of Hoppes (so does the AG gel) so I quit using it.
When I built a glue-in, I started by bedding the rifle conventionally using Acraaglas liquid. When I took it apart, I scrubbed the bedding and the receiver with brake cleaner. When I was pretty sure I had eliminated any release agent, I sandblasted the bedding and the receiver with coarse sand. Then I degreased again. I screwed a short stud into the front screw hole then applied a thin coating of acraglas to both receiver and bedding. Put it together and tie it down with surgical tubing and Bob's your uncle. I always glued the action in with the barrel off. I quite certain J-B weld will work as well. I have done a quickie glue and screw using 5 minute epoxy and it worked out fine. I omitted the sand blasting because I planned to take it apart and redo it after the match. That was twelve years ago and it's still working well. WH
