Over the years I ignored the pillar bedding that Mausers seem to have. Don't jump on me on this as I am not into Mausers and therefore don't know much about them. However I have had a JC Higgins FN Mauser for 50 years and noted that they came with little tubes or maybe pillars on front and rear guard screws which separated the action from the floorplate and controlled the compression on the stock.

None of the M 70's, Rem 7XX's etc were made this way as far as I know.

I adopted the "tubing bedding" as I call it to some M 70's and it's easier and quicker than glassing in the whole action. What I do is to glass the recoil lug and just use a tube on the M 70's rear screw only.

Now I have just aquired an 1949 era FN sporter in 270 Win. I knew the accuracy history of this rifle and it would shoot moa with any loads and that was just aiming with an old Lyman 4X. Now that it has a proven Leu 3X9 on it the groups are in one hole for the first two shots at 100 yds will every load tried. The point of this story is that the bedding on this rifle just has to be done right and to have withstood many owners turning the screws who knows how tight.

The trigger guard has a "pillar" on it and it touches a stud on the action for the front screw. The magazine box also touches the action for it's full length! The stock also has a cross bolt and the actions recoil lug engages the lugs steel internal surfaces along with that part of the bottom of the action also.

The rear screw has a pillar also and the barrel makes contact firmly with the stock about two inches from the action but is tight bedded it's full length also. There is a bright ring on the wood from this contact so it's greater there.

My thoughts are is this the way to go on sporting bolt action rifles? Has "Winchester" been wrong all of these years?

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as know,Mauser triggerguards are supposed to make contact with the bottom of the receiver. The distance between the triggerguard and the rear tang is determined by the tube spacer/pillar you refer to. This is not neccesarily to control stock compression, but to avoid overtightening the tang screw which can "spring" the action. This is the way I have stocked all Mausers, Springfields and others. All of them are accurate rifles.

Without more feedback I am concluding that a pillar bedding system is the better way to go.

I'd a lot rather have a rifle pillar bedded than not. All of my fiberglass-stocked hunting rifles are pillar-bedded with machined aluminum pillars, and this provides several advantages. Once the action screws are tight they are absolutely tight, and stock compression is eliminated. Bedding remains constant, and strength is increased.

Even some of the better custom riflemakers are bedding their fine walnut-stock hunting rifles with aluminum pillars, which is a very smart move. If the inletting is done properly, you don't see any evidence of the bedding whatsoever, so you can have a tightly-inletted, pleasing fit with the advantages of pillar bedding all at the same time.

I've been hunting with pillar-bedded hunting rifles just about exclusively for the last fifteen years or so, and I'm sold on the advantages of that bedding system. I see no sensible reason NOT to prefer it, but not all riflesmiths do a quality job of it.

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