recoil lug bedded front and rear?

[eddief]

I have bedded in excess of 200 rifles easily. On a Remington style I tape the front, sides and bottom. It simply allows you to dis-assemble and re-assemble without issue.

I also chamfer sharp edges in the bedding where the recoil lug drops in, to a avoid a sliver or small chip of bedding getting knocked off and wedged in the recoil lug mortice.

Lots of ways to skin a cat, some are more user friendly than others. As far as the bedding pad in front of the lug, it's a moot point if done correctly.

Checking the bedding job with a dial indicator lets me know if the final job is stress free.

Eddie Fosnaugh
Fosnaugh Customs, LLC.

 

[mgberry]

Eddie...what do you mean by checking the bedding job with a dial indicator?


Matt

 

[AckleymanII]

If you want the action to be solidly bedded, why tape better than half the lug off before you bed it..
I tape the bottom of the lug only, but I do use custom lugs that are ground flat..
If I was using a factory lug I would tape it all over so it dont stick..
I never bed in front of the lug, if it's going to be floated, let it float..

I do the same, even on Remington recoil lugs, then can be tough going in and coming out, but I do use this tool to relieve the bottom of the recoil lug:

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

I usually bed the entire lug, then take about .010 off of the bottom of the lug in my mill. Point being, I don't want the lug to bottom out on the lug recess or a small piece of debris inside it. I find this a cleaner and easier method to the same end as taping the bottom of the lug.

 

[rayjay]

If you ever remove the bbl there is no way the recoil lug is going to end up exactly where it was before in relation to the bbl and receiver. For this reason I have gone from bedding all but the bottom to bedding only the rear surface.

 

[BoydAllen]

How many shooters are able to tune and shoot their rifles well enough to be able to see very small differences in accuracy? I know of a local gunsmith that has bedded a lot of rifles over the years. Most of those jobs were not pillar bedding. Virtually all of the rifles shot better. None of his customers have used him to build competition rifles. If he depended on that sort of work, he would have to give up gunsmithing. My point is that volume of work tells us nothing. I know of no smith that builds for benchrest competition that beds under barrels. This would include rifles built on factory actions, that have long heavy barrels. One option on lug bedding is to recognize that only one side of the lug is dealing with resisting torque. If the barrel has a RH twist, the rifle rolls to its left as it recoils, which means that RH side of the lug is the one that would be resisting torque, it it were bedded. The bottom, front, or other side do not.

 

[Hntndad]

One option on lug bedding is to recognize that only one side of the lug is dealing with resisting torque. If the barrel has a RH twist, the rifle rolls to its left as it recoils, which means that RH side of the lug is the one that would be resisting torque, it it were bedded. The bottom, front, or other side do not.

Slightly embarrassed to admit, I never stopped to consider this. Thanks Boyd, makes the most sense to me.

 

[PaulDH]

One option on lug bedding is to recognize that only one side of the lug is dealing with resisting torque. If the barrel has a RH twist, the rifle rolls to its left as it recoils, which means that RH side of the lug is the one that would be resisting torque, it it were bedded. The bottom, front, or other side do not.

I'll be bedding a BAT HRPIC action in Devcon shortly. A muzzle-braked 338 Lapua Improved shooting 300gr bullets @3000fps. Perhaps I'll tape the bottom, front, and left side of the lug. Allowing direct contact on the right side of the lug to resist rotational torque. Makes sense on paper...

 

[rayjay]

I can't imagine the receiver is going to torque in one direction or the other unless your action screws are way too loose. Otherwise factory bedding jobs would rotate themselves right out of the stock.

If rotational torque was an issue the bedding would be smeared under the action from all the movement.

Even if you are going to think that rotational torque is an issue there is the whole "equal and opposite reaction" thing to deal with. Once the bullet leaves the bore the action is going to snap around in the other direction.

 

[BoydAllen]

Probably 30 or more years ago, a fellow who was quite an experimenter, and who wrote for Precision Shooting magazine, Merril Martin, published a piece about an experiment that he had done, along with picures or the work, and his targets. He was working with a round action a Savage, barreled in .308, that had been beddded using aluminum pillars so that they were in direct contact with the action, I forget the exact weight, but he was working with heavy bullets. Examining the tops of the pillars, he saw some evidence of fretting from movement by the action in a direction that seemed to indicate that the action was moving slightly during firing as if it was trying to rotate. Taking a somewhat unorthodox approach to eliminating this fretting, he sprinkled the tops of the pillars with a little silicon carbide abrasive that he had on hand, so that the friction between the action and the tops of the pillars would be increased, and then reinstalled the barreled action, and torqued the action screws. Comparing groups shot before and after this modification, it had yielded a noticeable improvement.

Some years later, I had a conversation about pillar bedding with George Kelby in which he told me that early on in their experience that they had discovered that when metal pillars were used (as opposed to those that were cast in place of Devcon plastic aluminum putty) that the rifles shot better if there was at least a skim coat of bedding between the tops of the pillars and the action. Remembering what I had read in Martins article it occurred to me that the reason was the increased "traction" that this provided.

Before any of this occurred, and before there had been much published about pillar bedding, I had a conversation with a skilled highpower shooter who quite untypically shot a Remington action. Back then he was using conventional glass bedding. Through experience, he had found that when he switched from loads using 168 SMKs to the 190 that he used for long range prone, in their .308s, that the additional torque destabilized the bedding, and degraded accuracy. To counter this, his rifle had a recoil lug that looked to be about a half inch thick, which he told me was bedded on one side to work against the torque of the action in the stock during firing. Another approach was to TIG weld a flat bottomed half sleeve to the bottom of the front of the action.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Probably 30 or more years ago, a fellow who was quite an experimenter, and who wrote for Precision Shooting magazine, Merril Martin, published a piece about an experiment that he had done, along with picures or the work, and his targets. He was working with a round action a Savage, barreled in .308, that had been beddded using aluminum pillars so that they were in direct contact with the action, I forget the exact weight, but he was working with heavy bullets. Examining the tops of the pillars, he saw some evidence of fretting from movement by the action in a direction that seemed to indicate that the action was moving slightly during firing as if it was trying to rotate. Taking a somewhat unorthodox approach to eliminating this fretting, he sprinkled the tops of the pillars with a little silicon carbide abrasive that he had on hand, so that the friction between the action and the tops of the pillars would be increased, and then reinstalled the barreled action, and torqued the action screws. Comparing groups shot before and after this modification, it had yielded a noticeable improvement.

Some years later, I had a conversation about pillar bedding with George Kelby in which he told me that early on in their experience that they had discovered that when metal pillars were used (as opposed to those that were cast in place of Devcon plastic aluminum putty) that the rifles shot better if there was at least a skim coat of bedding between the tops of the pillars and the action. Remembering what I had read in Martins article it occurred to me that the reason was the increased "traction" that this provided.

Before any of this occurred, and before there had been much published about pillar bedding, I had a conversation with a skilled highpower shooter who quite untypically shot a Remington action. Back then he was using conventional glass bedding. Through experience, he had found that when he switched from loads using 168 SMKs to the 190 that he used for long range prone, in their .308s, that the additional torque destabilized the bedding, and degraded accuracy. To counter this, his rifle had a recoil lug that looked to be about a half inch thick, which he told me was bedded on one side to work against the torque of the action in the stock during firing. Another approach was to TIG weld a flat bottomed half sleeve to the bottom of the front of the action.

This is why i love seeing those pretty full dia pillars on a freshly bedded stock! You can spot those issues right off the bat.

 

[dkhunt14]

I can't imagine the receiver is going to torque in one direction or the other unless your action screws are way too loose. Otherwise factory bedding jobs would rotate themselves right out of the stock.

If rotational torque was an issue the bedding would be smeared under the action from all the movement.

Even if you are going to think that rotational torque is an issue there is the whole "equal and opposite reaction" thing to deal with. Once the bullet leaves the bore the action is going to snap around in the other direction.

I saw some videos on action and barrel movement. They slowed it down so you could see what was happening.
In one test they put a top hole in a muzzlebrake and the barrel bent down on shot. It moved almost an inch. The action was flexing and the stock was bending. I think that would be hard on action and bedding.
There is more torque and flex on firing then you think. Matt

 

[M-61]

Quote from dkhunt14:
"......There is more torque and flex on firing then you think."

Maybe I saw the same or similar videos. My reaction was astonishment that any bullet hit what it was aimed at.

 

[dkhunt14]

Quote from dkhunt14:
"......There is more torque and flex on firing then you think."

Maybe I saw the same or similar videos. My reaction was astonishment that any bullet hit what it was aimed at.

When I saw it my jaw dropped in disbelief. I thought how the $%&& could it do that. Matt