I have a black walnut foreend and buttstock for my Savage 99. Buttstock is affixed via a quarter-inch aluminum buttsocket screw. To reinforce and stabilize the wood, I'll be glass bedding both pieces. What else can I do to stabilize the wood from walking/warping/pressuring the metal abnormally?

Among the more bizarre possibilities might be inletting and gluing into the wood glass/graphite rods. My fallback is to replace the wood with Rutland laminated birch. Total cost of doing this, however, would be severe.

Most 99s shoot pretty well for lever guns.

One trick if a 99 is acting up is to bed the forend to the barrel, then relieve the wood at the front of the receiver so that it does not exert any pressure.

Mic McPherson recommends NOT going to the use of stiffening agents imbedded in the forend. Rather, he recommends installing an epoxy or metal pillar in the forend screw hole, and then bedding the area between the back of the forearm and the front of the receiver with RTV rubber as sold in tubes by Permetex. (RTV= Room Temperature Vulcanizing)

That allows for barrel expansion during the heating caused by firing the gun, wood shrinkage with age, and a whole lot of other evils, without experiencing a "bind" between metal and forend.

It also tends to prevent the transference and multiplying of harmonics of vibrations travelling from forend to metal and vice-versa, IF the metal of the gun doesn't touch the forend anywhere between the contact at the RTV rubber and the pillar, nor beyond.

After the pillar and RTV rubber are in place, a scraper can be used to clear the barrel channel so there is no unsightly gap between barrel and forend. There is contact between the barrel and the forend pillar, but no contact elsewhere.

This type of bedding can reportedly often go a long way toward preventing vertical stringing of shots from both single shot rifles and Model 99 Savages.

Thanks, guys. So my thoughts aren't as far into left field as I feared.

Any suggestions regarding craftsmen to do the job? Mic McPherson is way out of my budget. But as far others?

cNaphtali -

I slightly reworded my previous post so you can more easily visualize the end result you are looking for.

I suggest the very best person in the world to do that work is YOU!

All you need by way of special tools would be a barrel channel scraper from Brownells (a quite inexpensive hand tool), and either an Exacto knife, a scalple, or a sharp chisel to trim the RTV rubber after it has set. Just work very slowly, keeping in mind the end desired is to have a free-floating forend with rifle forend-to-metal contact only at the front of the receiver (via the RTV) and at the pillar (via epoxy). I suggest you use the RTV instead of epoxy where the forend meets the receiver, as it is much more shock absorbent and flexible than epoxy. At the pillar you'll probably want epoxy for its greater rigidity and because it will be holding the pillar in place in the forend so it's strong "glue" qualities are also desirable.

You can use any piece of metal tubing slightly larger than the forend screw to make your pillar, so long as you don't use really "thin-walled" tubing. It can be aluminum, brass, steel, whatever. Just be sure to cut it entirely as long as the screw hole through the forend (not including the screw head part of the hole), and rough up the exterior of the tubing so it will be held best by the epoxy when installed in the forend.

The intent of the pillar is to keep the wood from being crushed when the screw is tightened, thereby making it possible to have constant, identical torque on the forend screw. To achieve that, you don't want the wood itself touching either the screw or the barrel, just the pillar. And you want the hole through the tubing which forms the pillar to be just a tiny bit larger in dameter than the screw, so it does not bear on any side of the screw. Also there is no need to tighten the screw overmuch when you have a pillar. Just a tiny bit more than full contact of the pillar with the barrel is all that is needed or wanted. Over-tightening can in itself set up stresses in the barrel, whether using a pillar or not. Once you get it all set up, you can use a little of the low strength Loctite to keep the screw from vibrating loose. DO NOT use high strength Loctite, or it may be together forever.

It is VERY easy work to do, just go slow, and think two or three times before you make any cuts. When you get through you should have a good shooting '99 and the pride of having done it yourself. And very little expense...

YOU CAN DO THIS. TRUST YOURSELF AND GO SLOW. REMEMBER THE OLD CARPENTER'S RULE OF THUMB. MEASURE TWICE (OR MORE) AND CUT ONCE.