I hope I am not stepping on a beat to death subject, but I have not seen much about it lately. I have a Remington 700 VS in .308, and it is still stock. I don't intend to rebarrel it for a while (but I will eventually). I know that the factory stock has an aluminum bedding block in it, as I checked it out when I got it out of storage. I noticed, that unlike my other rifles which are glass bedded, this stock only makes contact in two directions. One is the fit of the block to the underside of the receiver, and the other is where the recoil lug butts agains its recess in the stock. Otherwise, the action is free to slide, rotate, etc. The only thing keeping the action from sliding around in the stock are the two action screws. With handloads I mess around and get .5" to 1+" groups with it, but this seems weird to me. If I bed this rifle just to stop the excess, but leaving the contact with the bedding block alone, can I expect to see improvement? Or should I leave damn well enough alone?

And I know someone is going to say it, yes, down the road I am going to install a better quality barrel (once I decide which kind ).

The aluminum in the stock does very little if anything for bedding. It adds strength to the stock to reduce flexing. The action should be bedded to the stock. Coat the action with shoe polish for releasing agent and bed the stock with Devcon.

And yes on the better barrel. (Krieger)

if your groups a varying a bit then bedding will help them become more uniform. so hopefully itll tighten your groups up. the action might not be moving a hell of a lot now but if it were me id prefer it to be not moving at all. go ahead and bed it.

And yes on the better barrel. (shilen)

The aluminum block has everything to do with bedding. That is why it is patented as a "bedding block". It provides an uncrushable bed for the action to bear against when the action screws are tightened. Seeing as very few actions are identical, in their outside dimensions, it is advisable to bed over the bedding block, if you are looking for the best possible bedding job.

quote:

Originally posted by eddieharren:
The aluminum block has everything to do with bedding. That is why it is patented as a "bedding block". It provides an uncrushable bed for the action to bear against when the action screws are tightened. Seeing as very few actions are identical, in their outside dimensions, it is advisable to bed over the bedding block, if you are looking for the best possible bedding job.

With many brands of so called "bedding block" equipped rifles from the different factorys, the only portion of the actions that are touching the stock are the rear tang and the recoil lug. If the receiver is not properly contacting the stock, they can advertise it for anything they want. In essence it is doing nothing but adding rigidity to the stock. Just because it has an aluminum base in the stock does not insure the manufactuer has the proper contact. Bed the action.

Bedding will help and if you don't know how get it done by someone that does. It will make a difference.

I did sort of a cheat bed. I just relieved the barrel to makes sure it free floated and bedded the recoil lug only. I havent been to the range yet. My goal in doing this was to make sure the barrel stayed centered in the stock and free floated.

Great replies! Most of my experience is with Brownell's Acraglas or Acragel. I am not familiar with Marine Tex but I am willing to look into it. I have bedded a Weatherby and a Ruger with good results and would be rather minimal in application with this rifle.