Pillars then bedding, methods?

[AlNyhus]

Then why bed at all? Just stick some pillars in there and let the action rest on only those.

 

[LVLAaron]

Then why bed at all? Just stick some pillars in there and let the action rest on only those.

Sounds good to me

 

[Evan]

Then why bed at all? Just stick some pillars in there and let the action rest on only those.

Just to keep the conversation moving, an action resting on two pillars creates point loads that can more easily strain the action. Distributing any strain across the entire bottom of the action improves our chances of not drastically changing how the action vibrates.

 

[CharlieNC]

Just to keep the conversation moving, an action resting on two pillars creates point loads that can more easily strain the action. Distributing any strain across the entire bottom of the action improves our chances of not drastically changing how the action vibrates.

I think stress free bedding requires stress free pillars as a component.

 

[WSnyder]

Then why bed at all? Just stick some pillars in there and let the action rest on only those.

When I was much younger and before the internet and I only had myself to ask and ponder what would happen (it’s called experimentation ) I did just that. I bedded the lug and let it sit on the two pillars. It shot just fine for a sporter barreled hunting rifle. But to finish the experiment I cut the pillars down .050” or so, relieved the lug bedding about the same amount and then did a full bed. Overall in the long run it was an improvement but not drastic, for a hunting rifle mind you.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

When I was much younger and before the internet and I only had myself to ask and ponder what would happen (it’s called experimentation ) I did just that. I bedded the lug and let it sit on the two pillars. It shot just fine for a sporter barreled hunting rifle. But to finish the experiment I cut the pillars down .050” or so, relieved the lug bedding about the same amount and then did a full bed. Overall in the long run it was an improvement but not drastic, for a hunting rifle mind you.

That's still the best way to learn, though. Lots of opinions on forums but the target doesn't have any bias or preconceived notions. It just tells the tale.

 

[jimmymac]

That's still the best way to learn, though. Lots of opinions on forums but the target doesn't have any bias or preconceived notions. It just tells the tale.

Yep. Those random shots into the condition are never a good thing.

 

[Evan]

I think stress free bedding requires stress free pillars as a component.

What about when the stock moves? Or the epoxy and pillars all move with temperature at different rates? Suddenly they are pulling and pushing on the action.

 

[CharlieNC]

What about when the stock moves? Or the epoxy and pillars all move with temperature at different rates? Suddenly they are pulling and pushing on the action.

And so does the bedding as it is attached to the stock. To be clear I'm not saying I have the correct answer, but posing these statements as questions for someone who might have looked at the options to get a response.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Id like to pose a question about stress in bedding. Lets say the stock moved or the bedding was not done right and there was some stress in the bedding. Say you crack a screw and it moves more than you want to see. What exactly is that doing that has an effect on raw accuracy? Im far more interested in the why of things than the how. Id like to hear thoughts on what that "stress" s doing that has an effect on how the rifle shoots. I have bedded 100s maybe 1000s I dont know. It took a lot of attempts to get the process down to where I was happy. So I have my opinions, but Id like to hear others.

 

[Jud96]

Id like to pose a question about stress in bedding. Lets say the stock moved or the bedding was not done right and there was some stress in the bedding. Say you crack a screw and it moves more than you want to see. What exactly is that doing that has an effect on raw accuracy? Im far more interested in the why of things than the how. Id like to hear thoughts on what that "stress" s doing that has an effect on how the rifle shoots. I have bedded 100s maybe 1000s I dont know. It took a lot of attempts to get the process down to where I was happy. So I have my opinions, but Id like to hear others.

Grabbing my popcorn for this

 

[BoydAllen]

I think that we can all agree that we are trying to get the action to do the same thing every shot. Part of this is to minimize movement, and the rest is to make what movement there is as consistent as possible.

Pillars allow us to increase the tension on the action screws without distorting the bedding, as it would be if more compressible material surrounded the action action screws. The additional tension on the screws (with pillars) increases the unit loading which increases the traction between action and bedding, limiting movement.

When we do FL bedding of the action we increase the chance of their being a high spot that results in the action being slightly bent (within the materials' elastic limit) and which would also reduce the effective contact and shot to shot consistency of the compression and reset of the bedding from shot to shot.

One way to deal with this is to do what I have called bridge bedding where contact is limited to the recoil lug, what would be the front receiver ring of a rifle with a magazine, and the area behind the trigger. Another common solution is to glue the action in.

Many years back when Mike Walker was in charge of the custom shop, Remington found that the 40Xs that were chambered with the most accurate rounds and stocked for bench use, shot better if the bottom half of the receiver was a true partial cylindrical shape as compared to the slight distortion that comes from doing all of the machining before heat treating. For the then new BR model, they changed the order of operations on the action so that the OD was ground after heat treat, which would have made stamped lettering (which had to be done pre heat treat) problematic, so a different system was used. Lettering was applied rather than stamped and those who are familiar with the 40X-BR are familiar with this difference.

The reason that I bring this up is that IMO the only reason for the true cylinder being advantageous would be to improve the consistencey of how the bedding reacted for successive shots, how it tracked, as it were.

This was all before the advent of pillar bedding, that limits that movement by increased unit loading, increasing traction between the parts. I think that looking at what is happening as the rifle is fired helps us understand what we are dealing with.

Probably the biggest lesson that we can learn from all of this is that since wood and fiberglass can move in ways that affect accuracy, checking bedding from time to time makes sense. The bad news is that expensive bedding jobs may need redoing from time to time.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

I think that we can all agree that we are trying to get the action to do the same thing every shot. Part of this is to minimize movement, and the rest is to make what movement there is as consistent as possible.

Pillars allow us to increase the tension on the action screws without distorting the bedding, as it would be if more compressible material surrounded the action action screws. The additional tension on the screws (with pillars) increases the unit loading which increases the traction between action and bedding, limiting movement.

When we do FL bedding of the action we increase the chance of their being a high spot that results in the action being slightly bent (within the materials' elastic limit) and which would also reduce the effective contact and shot to shot consistency of the compression and reset of the bedding from shot to shot.

One way to deal with this is to do what I have called bridge bedding where contact is limited to the recoil lug, what would be the front receiver ring of a rifle with a magazine, and the area behind the trigger. Another common solution is to glue the action in.

Many years back when Mike Walker was in charge of the custom shop, Remington found that the 40Xs that were chambered with the most accurate rounds and stocked for bench use, shot better if the bottom half of the receiver was a true partial cylindrical shape as compared to the slight distortion that comes from doing all of the machining before heat treating. For the then new BR model, they changed the order of operations on the action so that the OD was ground after heat treat, which would have made stamped lettering (which had to be done pre heat treat) problematic, so a different system was used. Lettering was applied rather than stamped and those who are familiar with the 40X-BR are familiar with this difference.

The reason that I bring this up is that IMO the only reason for the true cylinder being advantageous would be to improve the consistencey of how the bedding reacted for successive shots, how it tracked, as it were.

This was all before the advent of pillar bedding, that limits that movement by increased unit loading, increasing traction between the parts. I think that looking at what is happening as the rifle is fired helps us understand what we are dealing with.

Probably the biggest lesson that we can learn from all of this is that since wood and fiberglass can move in ways that affect accuracy, checking bedding from time to time makes sense. The bad news is that expensive bedding jobs may need redoing from time to time.

Good post and well said, Boyd. You bring up several things that are likely overlooked/over simplified by many of us. Thanks!

 

[Alex Wheeler]

I think that we can all agree that we are trying to get the action to do the same thing every shot. Part of this is to minimize movement, and the rest is to make what movement there is as consistent as possible.

Pillars allow us to increase the tension on the action screws without distorting the bedding, as it would be if more compressible material surrounded the action action screws. The additional tension on the screws (with pillars) increases the unit loading which increases the traction between action and bedding, limiting movement.

When we do FL bedding of the action we increase the chance of their being a high spot that results in the action being slightly bent (within the materials' elastic limit) and which would also reduce the effective contact and shot to shot consistency of the compression and reset of the bedding from shot to shot.

One way to deal with this is to do what I have called bridge bedding where contact is limited to the recoil lug, what would be the front receiver ring of a rifle with a magazine, and the area behind the trigger. Another common solution is to glue the action in.

Many years back when Mike Walker was in charge of the custom shop, Remington found that the 40Xs that were chambered with the most accurate rounds and stocked for bench use, shot better if the bottom half of the receiver was a true partial cylindrical shape as compared to the slight distortion that comes from doing all of the machining before heat treating. For the then new BR model, they changed the order of operations on the action so that the OD was ground after heat treat, which would have made stamped lettering (which had to be done pre heat treat) problematic, so a different system was used. Lettering was applied rather than stamped and those who are familiar with the 40X-BR are familiar with this difference.

The reason that I bring this up is that IMO the only reason for the true cylinder being advantageous would be to improve the consistencey of how the bedding reacted for successive shots, how it tracked, as it were.

This was all before the advent of pillar bedding, that limits that movement by increased unit loading, increasing traction between the parts. I think that looking at what is happening as the rifle is fired helps us understand what we are dealing with.

Probably the biggest lesson that we can learn from all of this is that since wood and fiberglass can move in ways that affect accuracy, checking bedding from time to time makes sense. The bad news is that expensive bedding jobs may need redoing from time to time.

Good post. I would like to have been able to check some of those actions. If the od is inconsistent so is the id which means poor lug contact. The most winning action in current times does not have the best od but the id is very good. Now if they had just od ground them and that fixed the accuracy I could go with that. But if the machining ops were changed to get straighter actions, I would not attribute the accuracy gain to the bedding but the lug contact. Again, I was not there so Im just talking. The biggest issue I see with actions is that you cant control how the material moves as you cut it.

 

[BoydAllen]

Good post. I would like to have been able to check some of those actions. If the od is inconsistent so is the id which means poor lug contact. The most winning action in current times does not have the best od but the id is very good. Now if they had just od ground them and that fixed the accuracy I could go with that. But if the machining ops were changed to get straighter actions, I would not attribute the accuracy gain to the bedding but the lug contact. Again, I was not there so Im just talking. The biggest issue I see with actions is that you cant control how the material moves as you cut it.

All of the machining except grinding the OD was as before, done before heat treating.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Thanks for that. That helps with the point Im trying to make. There are so many contradicting "facts" in this game its not funny. And yes, Im only talking sources you would consider reputable. I am aware of some of the tests that have been done or lack there of in some of the areas that many consider gospel. A lot of the stuff considered to be "standards" are literally based on guesses. In this exact case, I dont have first hand knowledge. But if what you say is true, then theres a lot left on the table with all current records because the od of the most popular br action is not consistent.

 

[LVLAaron]

Id like to pose a question about stress in bedding. Lets say the stock moved or the bedding was not done right and there was some stress in the bedding. Say you crack a screw and it moves more than you want to see. What exactly is that doing that has an effect on raw accuracy? Im far more interested in the why of things than the how. Id like to hear thoughts on what that "stress" s doing that has an effect on how the rifle shoots. I have bedded 100s maybe 1000s I dont know. It took a lot of attempts to get the process down to where I was happy. So I have my opinions, but Id like to hear others.

As long as there's good bedding contact, and the lugs are making full and correct contact, I would think that's more than most guys can ask for. Guys will spend a ton of money on a pretty stock and a show room bedding job, and have one lug barely touching.

 

[padom]

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.

I do it the same way

 

[Bc'z]

Then why bed at all? Just stick some pillars in there and let the action rest on only those.

I got a rig that shoots really small with no bedding, action is just riding the pillars.
I've watched videos of slow motion harmonics as the round is fired, knowing that everything is flexixing under recoil your statement really kinda sorta makes some sense to me.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

I got a rig that shoots really small with no bedding, action is just riding the pillars.
I've watched videos of slow motion harmonics as the round is fired, knowing that everything is flexixing under recoil your statement really kinda sorta makes some sense to me.

Ill tell ya story about that sometime. YES, a glue in vibrates differently than a PERFECT bedding job. One of the coolest things we saw with vibration analysis testing, IMO. Maybe not the most significant, but coolest...to me. It validated that we are changing phase time with tuners...fwiw.