Pillars then bedding, methods?

[Fast14riot]

I'm in the camp of bedding over the top of pillars, and as such I glue my pillars in first, flush with the bottom of the stock. My method is using tape and lots of release agent on places I do not want epoxy to go, holding pillars flush with bottom of stock.

I'm curious of other methods just to see if I can streamline my process at all. Anyone care to share?

Got one I'm about to do, so thought it might help to see other processes.

 

[boltfluter]

I attach my pillars directly to the action and lower into the bedding. Sorry, no bedding on top of my pillars. Surprised no one has answered.

 

[BoydAllen]

Years ago I had a long phone conversation with George Kelbly (who recently passed) about the history of pillar bedding. He told me that back in the beginning, when they first did aluminum pillars (Earlier they had cast them in place in the stock and done a second bedding job to deal with shrinkage.) they found that having even just a thin coat of bedding over the tops of the pillars shot better than metal to metal . The issue is shrinkage. Even the best bedding material has some shrinkage, and that will cause the tops of the pillars to end up proud of the surrounding bedding. If you take a look at recent pictures of his bedding, by Alex Wheeler, I do not think that you will see the tops of his pillars. I think that the best way is to glue in the pillars as a separate step, using the action as a fixture, but with spacers between the tops of the pillars and the action, setting the whole thing up so that the bedding over the pillars is about the same thickness as that under the rest of the action. BTW the cast in pillars work just fine.

 

[Fast14riot]

Years ago I had a long phone conversation with George Kelbly (who recently passed) about the history of pillar bedding. He told me that back in the beginning, when they first did aluminum pillars (Earlier they had cast them in place in the stock and done a second bedding job to deal with shrinkage.) they found that having even just a thin coat of bedding over the tops of the pillars shot better than metal to metal . The issue is shrinkage. Even the best bedding material has some shrinkage, and that will cause the tops of the pillars to end up proud of the surrounding bedding. If you take a look at recent pictures of his bedding, by Alex Wheeler, I do not think that you will see the tops of his pillars. I think that the best way is to glue in the pillars as a separate step, using the action as a fixture, but with spacers between the tops of the pillars and the action, setting the whole thing up so that the bedding over the pillars is about the same thickness as that under the rest of the action. BTW the cast in pillars work just fine.

Part of why I like bedding over the top is the ability to skim bed after laying down the bulk of it. Cast pillars are great, too, but I have aluminum pillars made for this to my spec and might as well use them.

I'm just curious about other who bed over the top, how their method goes.

 

[AlNyhus]

I bed over the top of the pillars with a minimum thickness of .035 of material and reduce the O.D. of the upper portion of the pillar so the compound locks on to the O.D. as well as covering the top. The bedding is done as a single step. -Al

 

[LVLAaron]

One added benefit of burying the pillars - If you have to redo the bedding, you don't need to cut into/around aluminum

 

[pertnear]

I attach my pillars directly to the action and lower into the bedding. Sorry, no bedding on top of my pillars. Surprised no one has answered.

This is the way I do it also. I bolt the pillars to the action, coat with devcon & slip into stock. The action is held in place with rubber bands until it cures. The next step is to then bed the action. I also bed the floor plate around the pillar bottoms, if there is one. I like Remington actions & I use flat-ended homemade pillars against the curved action bottom. Final result is the pillars touch metal-to-metal with a thin ring of bedding around the pillar hole. Hope that description makes sense.

 

[boltfluter]

This is the way I do it also. I bolt the pillars to the action, coat with devcon & slip into stock. The action is held in place with rubber bands until it cures. The next step is to then bed the action. I also bed the floor plate around the pillar bottoms, if there is one. I like Remington actions & I use flat-ended homemade pillars against the curved action bottom. Final result is the pillars touch metal-to-metal with a thin ring of bedding around the pillar hole. Hope that description makes sense.

It does. Many ways to do this. Both methods have a following for sure. The target has the final say. Lol.
Paul

 

[hpshooter]

It does. Many ways to do this. Both methods have a following for sure. The target has the final say. Lol.
Paul

What would the downside be if one were to reduce the pillar diameter that contacts the action to within an 1/16" or so of the action bolt hole dia. x .040" or so long, bed in one step and counter-bore the "nose" off the pillar when you bore them for bolt clearance.

(I initially bore the pillars to within a close slip fit over the action bolts and come back after the bedding cures and open them up for bolt clearance)

Will try this on the next stock I bed when and if I do bed another one.

 

[boltfluter]

What would the downside be if one were to reduce the pillar diameter that contacts the action to within an 1/16" or so of the action bolt hole dia. x .040" or so long, bed in one step and counter-bore the "nose" off the pillar when you bore them for bolt clearance.

(I initially bore the pillars to within a close slip fit over the action bolts and come back after the bedding cures and open them up for bolt clearance)

Will try this on the next stock I bed when and if I do bed another one.

Sounds like a great idea to me! You have obviously put some thought into this. Keep us posted if you try this out. Kind of the best of both worlds.
Paul

 

[DiffEQ]

I glue my pillars into the stock, make sure they are perfectly finished, and then apply bedding.

 

[Jonnyofalltrades]

What would the downside be if one were to reduce the pillar diameter that contacts the action to within an 1/16" or so of the action bolt hole dia. x .040" or so long, bed in one step and counter-bore the "nose" off the pillar when you bore them for bolt clearance.

(I initially bore the pillars to within a close slip fit over the action bolts and come back after the bedding cures and open them up for bolt clearance)

Will try this on the next stock I bed when and if I do bed another one.

I hope you don't mind if I steal your idea, because that's going to get tried out on my next bedding job.
Thank you for sharing!

Can't believe I never thought of that....

 

[hpshooter]

I hope you don't mind if I steal your idea, because that's going to get tried out on my next bedding job.
Thank you for sharing!

Can't believe I never thought of that....

Feel free to give it a try and post your results. Don't know when or if I will be doing any more bedding, pretty well fixed for rifles at this point in time. Of course we all know how quickly we may take on a new project but the only ones I have on hand are a couple large action Martinis which may only need some bedding of the butt stocks.

 

[NorCalMikie]

Metal to metal contact between the pillar tops and the action. Don't need no stinken bedding on top of the pillars.
Bolt the pillars to the action and bed them into the stock being careful to shim the action for clearance.. After that's set, go back and add bedding to fit the action/stock clearance. YMMV.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

What would the downside be if one were to reduce the pillar diameter that contacts the action to within an 1/16" or so of the action bolt hole dia. x .040" or so long, bed in one step and counter-bore the "nose" off the pillar when you bore them for bolt clearance.

(I initially bore the pillars to within a close slip fit over the action bolts and come back after the bedding cures and open them up for bolt clearance)

Will try this on the next stock I bed when and if I do bed another one.

I've done them both ways and I think both ways work fine. Kinda related...I prefer to bed the recoil lug of a Remington(or similar) full contact. Once out of the bedding. I simply take a non-critical cut off of the bottom of the recoil lug to create a little clearance at the bottom, about .015 or so. I just find this much easier than fooling with taping up that narrow surface and then often having to dig the tape out of the bedding etc. I typically leave the bedding like that but you can put clearance wherever you want it in a mill after it's cured and while doing the clean up

 

[mauser284]

I have never even heard of bedding on top of the pillars! To me that makes no sense at all! The pillar bedding should have already set the vertical limit in relationship to bottom metal and magazine feeding.

The glass bedding is about setting all other diemensions for and aft and right and left if the action has already been pillar bedded in advance.

If the stock has not already been pillar beded then the glass bedding all relationships can be set by the bedding compound alone.

Seldom do I find anything gained especialy on a hunting rifle or varmint rifle by going beyound a simple pillar bedding job.

If a pillar job goes bad in time it is easy and fast to fix! When a full glass bedding job goes bad it is a pain in the rear to fix and takes a lot of time to fix or redo!

 

[mauser284]

I have never even heard of bedding on top of the pillars! To me that makes no sense at all! The pillar bedding should have already set the vertical limit in relationship to bottom metal and magazine feeding.

The glass bedding is about setting all other diemensions for and aft and right and left if the action has already been pillar bedded in advance.

If the stock has not already been pillar beded then the glass bedding all relationships can be set by the bedding compound alone.

Seldom do I find anything gained especialy on a hunting rifle or varmint rifle by going beyound a simple pillar bedding job.

If a pillar job goes bad in time it is easy and fast to fix! When a full glass bedding job goes bad it is a pain in the rear to fix and takes a lot of time to fix or redo!

I wanted to add that if it works for you sure why not but engineering wise it makes no sense. Pillars made from steel or any alloy are not going to shrink ever once cut to height. No human will be shooting in an environment that is cold enough to matter to the pillar that would not effect the epoxy even more than the pillar! The epoxy used to hold them in place is not setting the verticle you do that when you cut and fit them. If you measure properly and have rudementary skills you can set the height to anything you want. Putting a diemensionaly unstable skim coat of epoxy over an alloy or steel diemensionaly stable pillar can never do anything that the pillar properly cut and set can not do better on it's own. You would have to cut and set the pillars in too short to have enough epoxy on top of them to do anything.


Maybe I am grossly misunderstanding what is going on?

 

[lancexxx]

Bed over pillars, bedding shrinks. If you want a perfect fit

 

[AlNyhus]

What would the downside be if one were to reduce the pillar diameter that contacts the action to within an 1/16" or so of the action bolt hole dia. x .040" or so long, bed in one step and counter-bore the "nose" off the pillar when you bore them for bolt clearance.

(I initially bore the pillars to within a close slip fit over the action bolts and come back after the bedding cures and open them up for bolt clearance)

Will try this on the next stock I bed when and if I do bed another one.

Respectfully, that's a long way around a better approach. I make the pillar I.D. 5/16" and glue a nylon sleeve in the bottom of the pillar that 5/16" O.D. and 1/4" I.D. to center the guide screws in the pillars and provide clearance for the action screws. When the barrelled action comes out of the beddimg, a twist drill pops the sleeves right out of the pillars. A little clean up and off you go. -Al

 

[LVLAaron]

As a student of Al's internet school of bedding rifles, his method works really well, and those nylon bushings make things really simple!