xp, how far north of Hutch?,my parents live in Hutch is it with in decent driving range?

How about less than 10 miles.

XP,

Thanks for the information, have to run that by my boss and see what she says. Are these his regular prices or just a one season thing. That seems pretty low priced for a private ranch hunt. Course if your like here in Montana where the game farms have been forced out of business, the local government smarties basically screwed the ranches and now they have all these elk and no market to sell them, not even for the meat because of this cronic wasting disease nonsense.

About the XP bedding block. I am playing with my 338 WSM right now because the smith that built it did not reinforce the recoil lug area or the hollow grip area and both had failed.

Last hunting season the grip cracked and I had to install three hardened threaded steel rods into the grip and steel bed them in place. Worked great to fix the grip but when I tried to mill the space out for the bedding block, I chewed up two HHS end mills and one solid carbide end mill trying to clear out the area needed for the block.

Because of the area one of two of them are in, I was not able to get a thick enough section of the block under the rear action screw to thread it for the larger screws.

What I did was drill a .300" hole in the rear of the block to allow the rear screw support to go up through the block and use the original small screw. It should be much stouter then the original system but with my 6.5 WSM I will work on the 1/4x28 screw more to see if it will work without an extreme about of action modification.

Got the bedding block bedded yesterday and today I will bedd the action to the Block/stock. Will be able to shoot it early next week and see how it performs.

Good Shooting!!!

Kirby(50)

Yes, these are discounted prices for this year only. He has to many bulls and is discounting them. CWD is another reason the market is down, and he sends the brains of all elk killed for testing, to insure CWD is not present.

Sounds like you are making progress. I think you really have something here, especially for the bigger cartridges.

Eric has me worked up over the 338 Lapua Improved. I never thought I would consider building something bigger than my Patriot, but now.......
It would be used for 1,000 yard shooting. If I could get 2600 (maybe a tad more with a 300 SMK... WOW!

Xphunter,

I have designed this block to provide the most strength possible(using aluminum material) in teh recoil lug area.

I wish I had a digital camera so I could post you pictures of the block to see what you think.

I will try to explain it to you.

The block itself has a roughly 1/2 inch raceway milled out inthe center to allow plenty of clearance for the trigger bar to move with no rubbing at all. This is a must as any contact will create an inconsistant trigger pull.

The V-block is made by milling a 45 degree angle out from this raceway and its surface area is roughly 1/2" long as well, which really is not needed, only that I wanted the actions contact point to be just higher on the action then where the bolt release lever is machined into the receiver.

This allowed me to mill a slot for the bolt retaining lever to drop sufficently to release the bolt but still provide the benefits of the blocks baring surfacr to extend back beyond the rear action screw.

The important part of the block is the front end. The wood XP stocks have alot of wood justbelow and behind the recoil lug area. This allows me to machine the block so that it extends roughly 3/4" down below the very bottom of the milled race way. This is alot of stiff material to support the recoil lug.

Also, with the design of the blocks V-groove, the outer section of the block is substantially outside of the recoil lug on both sides and extends far below the bottom edge of the lug as well. The placement of the contact poitn between the action and the block insures that the recoil lug has as much total baring area as possible to the block and even more importantly as high as possible as well to get the greatest decrease in flexing of the recoil lug under recoil.

This large thick section of the block extends roughly 1 3/4" rearward adn then I machined it down quite a bit to fit the very shallow area above the hand postion of the XP stocks.

To do this I milled the underside of the block away until the raceway opens up in the middle. So in this section there is an open slot where you can see down through the race way.

This at first may seen to weaken the block but let me explain my reasoning. First the top angles rails of the block are quite substantial and thick.

Second, anytime you use a bedding block that extends farther down on both ends of the block then the middle section like this block does, it really raises hell when you try to bed the block to the action.

Air gets trapped in this section and as the block is forced down into the stock for final positioning, most of the bedding compound will be forced out by the compressing air trapped under the block.

With my design, the compound is allowed to flow up and out of that opening providing a perfect, solid filled badding to the block. All that is needed after the compound cures it to run the 1/2" end mill down the raceway of teh block and your ready to roll. Not only is the bottom of the block securely bedded, the compound that worked up around that opening mechanically locks the block in place even better, actually producing a much stiffer, stronger bedding block then a solid bottomed block.

From there back, the block thickens again to a little over 1/2" thick and this is where I would have drilled and tapped teh block to accept the larger 1/4x28 TPI action screws but was unable to do so without high costs in end mills, somethign I do not like to buy often if I can avoid it.

Since I had previously bedded the traditional rear action screw support into the stock, I just thinned the rear section of the block and drilled the proper size hole to slip over that original screw support. When the screw is tightened down, the block it locked between the support and the action and I feel will provide a very stable support.

To increase the mecahnical locking effect of the bedding compound to the block, I machined grooves(0.125" diameter) in the side of the block every .500" and extending from the bottom, up to within 0.150" of the top edge of the block.

THis allows the compound to fill in these grooves and lock the block into the stock more securely yet. There are seven of these grooves on each side of the block.

Since the front action screw is the most important in all rifles really, but especially with the XP I decided to add a little insurance to the block. On the bottom of the block where the action screw pass through hole is, I machined a counterbore 0.200" deep from the bottom up.

I then turned an aluminum pillar to tightly fit this counter bored hole. This pillar was then grooved to hold more bedding compound for a stronger hold on the pillar. Basically, I pillar bedded the front end of the block so that there is nothing between the screw head and teh action except heat treated aluminum.

I removed the action last night and everything looks great. Now I will bed around the block on the sides, top and the rear to give it a more finished look as well as adding more strength to the bedding and shearing areas of the block to the stock under recoil.

THe bedding system will add roughly 6 oz to the handgun. I want to get this up and running so I can see how the aluminum will hold up to the pounding of these big handguns. It should do fine but I want to prove it to myself before I start advertising this new product.

Only way to make things stronger would be to use a quality allow steel to make the block out of, say 4130 or 4140 alloy steel but this would increase the machining costs dramatically compared to aluminum as well as easily doubling the weight increase of the system.

I am heading over right now to do the final bedding proceedure, basically bedding the action to the bedding block/stock.

I intentially did not bed any of the area around the recoil lug. SInce this does not effect strength in any way by doing this and can cause trouble getting actions out of the stock because compound flowed in the wrong places, I jsut leave this area bare aluminum. That way I can also monitor the compression of the metal if there is any.

Well, that was long winded, you sleeping yet. A picture would have been much quicker and easier, I apologize but I know you have an interest in such things.

So far I think this system will be a major advancement in XP-100 stability and stock longevity, we will see, only shooting will prove this.

I will keep you posted on the test results.

Good Shooting!!!

Kirby(50)

50,
You are a good communicator. I'm pretty sure I understood you. What I have missed (if any) is due to my lack of knowledge in this area, not your ability to explain it.
If it works like you want it may be the cat's meow for the 338 Lapua Improved. I have an action, but it cuurently has an H-S stock. Question: It is possible to put this in a H-S stock or can you only do this with all wood stocks?
Would a laminated wood be the ideal?

BTW,
Saw the bull elk today. He has got some big boys.

You�ve got to get a digital camera or a take some pictures and use a scanner your process sounds like it would work great I would sure like to see what you are explaining. I have been looking at all the gun shows for a XP-100 but haven�t found the right one yet. I want one with the center grip and I think in 308 or 260rem. I have often wondered why Remington quit making them.

XP,

Thanks, I often think I am rambling on and on, most times I am. I really think this will help the xp stocks handle the big hammers that we like for long range shooting.

The only thing I wish I could do different is to make the thickness of the block more to increase the rear frontal area if you will that supports and resists the setting back of the block.

Right now I have it about as wide as I can with the limits put into play with the handgun stock.

With this design though, there are two major shoulders that will support the block and keep it from setting back as well as the 14 side locking grooves which will do this as well, jsut not to the same degree.

I will tell you here soon if the H-S will handle this conversion. It has been a while since I played with one of their handgun stocks and I have not handled one since I started designing this block system.

I have an XP-100 coming from Mark Hampton, the handgun author, that he has asked to turn into a varmint killing machine using a Lilja 15" blank mounted in the H-S varminter stock adn chambered for the 223 Rem.

When I get that I am going to look it over real well and see what would be possible with that stock and this bedding block system.

Personally, I would prefer Laminated wood stocks but how is making them these days that you can afford to buy. The last ones I got and still have are the old Fajen thumbhole stocks(which I hate the thumbhole) which I have recontoured and refineshed to a conventional design with open trigger guard and ambi grip.

Anyway, I will let you know about the H-S as soon as I get my hands on one. I would say it would probably work fine but will not guarantee it until I can prove it to myself.

Thanks for the interest, I will keep you posted on teh range reports good or bad, either way I will learn alot to improve my design.

Kirby(50)

Swede,

Thanks for the post.

I know I need a digital camera, still its behind several tools or equipment on the "to get" list.

I will say that if you want a 308 or 260 in the XP, you better buy the next good quality XP you find and have one built on it whatever the round is it was originally chambered for. They are drying up fast.

THe last two XP's I saw here in Montana on the regional gun show circuit are now in my safe and that was 2 and 2 1/2 years ago respectively. I have seen only one since then and it was rusted extremely badly.

Still I concidered getting it still and refinishing it but the pits were extremely deep on the top of the receiver and there is only so much you can do with pits if they are very deep.

Simply put, getting an XP action is far more important then getting the XP-100 in the caliber you want.

Hell, I'll turn it into whatever you want, just get the action!!!

Good Shooting!!!

50

50,
One of my church members who is also a smith thought about the possibility of putting another lug at he very back of the action (A double lug). Have you thought about that possibility yet? I will let him chime in on this and describe it better, after you give your thoughts on it.

XP,

I only have one problem with this and I have though some on this. Here are my theories.

#1. The Xp stock has several weak points but its weakest is the wasp wasted section right under the middle of the receiver.

#2. The strongest part of the stock, when reinforced correctly is exactly where the recoil lug is originally.

#3. If for some reason, the front lug was not baring 100% or if there was even the slightest amount of compression behind the front lug, the rear lug would transmit all the recoil energy to the rear section of the stock. This is where the Wasp Wasted sweetie will really sting ya, sorry, getting carried away.

Anyway, this seation of stock is very weak in comparision to the rest of the stock and if the rear section was to have to endure the recoil energy, you will soon have a stock failure in this thin area.

#4. Another problem is that bedding blocks compress under recoil and then return to their original position. We are talking in the 0.0001" range but still they do compress and expand. Because of this the rear section will still get a fair amount of the recoil energy.

#5. The final reason I do not like this idea is because I have found no positive way to reinforce a rear locking lug on an XP.

I have seen a couple XP-100's that were converted to have a second 1/4x28 action screw installed up through the stock and into the rear tang of the action, much like the standard 700 action.

This particular handgun, a 350 Rem Mag, kept eating stocks at a rate of almost one a year. The rear of the stock was splitting right down the center on every one. By the time I met the fella, he had gone through three stocks and was fed up.

This was before I was a smith but I did know a thing or two about bedding actions and what you can and can not do.

The problem was that he was bedding the rear screw with contact to the bedding instead of the proper floating of the action screw.

We installed an aluminum column that was drilled open to .350" diameter for the through hole. This solved teh problem until the recoil lug baring surfaces failed and the stock had to be totally rebuilt. At the same time he had the bolt replaced and he rebarreled it to the 35 Rem as he was sick of the money the 350 RM was taking from him.

This is an example of what happens to the XP stock when the recoil energy is absorbed by the seak rear of the action.

This is just my opinion and I will admit I have never tested it on a handgun under live fire tests but that is because I saw no real advantage to such a system and several disadvantages.

Good Shooting!!!

50

At what time of year is this hunt to take place?
Also you mention a wide 6x6 at 3800 and then a normal 6x6 at 2000, is there a big difference in size between these two?
What other expenses are involved and can a non resident(Canadian) hunt there legally with a handgun?
A pile of questions for a short message eh! Anyways I'm not sure if I can make it or not but I'll keep in touch.
Mike
mdesrosi@mts.net