Milling out bedding?

[mshelton]

Has any of you ever used a mill to remove bedding material?

Back story is that I usually do all my bedding myself but with my latest rifle I paid someone to do the job and pour pillars. The job came back and the back end of the action sits about 3/8" too high in the stock, the action inlet is a little small and could have been opened up in a few min with a dowel sandpaper but wasn't. So now I need to remove all the bedding and open up the stock a wee bit. Normally a rotary tool would be fine to remove most of the old bedding and fill it back in but I'm going to need to remove all of it and try and get a good straight line along the top which is next to impossible with a hand tool. Brings me to the though of using a mill and I was wondering if anyone had ever done anything like this before.

 

[gmorganal]

If you have a stock with a fiberglas or composite shell, you will have to be awfully careful not to cut into the shell or you will weaken the stock.

 

[mshelton]

Yeah, I found that out on an old benchrest stock a couple of years back.

This stock is a McMillian marksman, it's shell is fairly thick, plenty of meat there to take a little of to get the action to drop in correctly.

 

[broncman]

A mill and a core box bit the diameter of the action, then a standard end mill to take out the pillars and any kind of depth you want to add under the action. This is the only easy and simple way to do it!
Magnate 812, 814 are the two I use are about $30 from amazon. They are carbide and should last a long time.

I also use the core box bits to get the pillar tops the same shape as the action.

Hope that helps!

 

[mshelton]

Yep, that does help, sounds like it may work out to be pretty easy.

 

[BoydAllen]

One way to move a line, outward, if the barreled action is properly aligned with the stock, (as viewed from above) is to run a pencil along the edge of the action or barrel with the pencil tilted so that the line is a constant distance from the metal part. I have done this when opening up a barrel channel, working to the line, with hand tools. Working carefully, you can end up with a good looking job. Of course I didn't have a mill, but even if I did, I would probably mark the stock, just to make sure I didn't go too far.

 

[mshelton]

Thanks Boyd, that's a pretty good suggestion that makes sense, I'll do that when I mill mine out.