Can someone enlighten me as to exactly what glasbedding is?
From what I can pick up, it's a layer of glass beads to seperate your barrel from your stock? I have a Ruger M-77, 7mm Mag.
I've got a Leupold on it and am very happy with it. (with Nosler hand loads)
Would I see a difference from glasbedding or is that for the fancy rifles?
And then, what about plastic or steel bedding?

guntoter,

Firstly "bedding" is the term used to describe the fit of the barreled action to your stock.

Glass bedding usually involves removing all contact between the barrel and the stock (that is called free floating the barrel) and then putting a layer of epoxy resin between the action and the stock so as to get a perfect fit. Glas bedding is not really the correct term as fiber glass is rarely used to bed a rifle. Words like plastic or steel bedding are only referring to the type of epoxy resing that is used.

Basically, the epoxy resin is put into the action area of the stock and a release agent (various kinds of waxes etc.) is applied to the action so that the whole assembly is not stuck together and can be taken apart. After it is taken apart the inside of the stock is cleaned up and the rifle reassembled.

When done properly it usually results in better and more consistent accuracy as well as having a more consistent point if impact.

As to the degree of improvement that depends on a few things. How good your barrel is and how bad or good your current rifle is set up with the factory bedding. At one extreme, if your factory bedding is terrible and you have a real good barrel then the imporvment could be quite dramatic. At the other extreme if your factory bedding is quite good and you have a crappy barrel you might not see any improvement and in fact could even go backwards.

Since improved consistency is one of the main gains how much improvement you would see will depend on how much you shoot. In other words the more you shoot the rifle the more you expose any inconsistencies.

Factory rifles as issued will often shoot some nice 3 shots groups if fired slowly and not fired a real lot.

Although you can't see it happen, when you fire your rifle things move about. Often when you wait a while the barreled action settles back to where it was and if you fire again the next shot will go close to the first.

Basically bedding and free floating stops this inconsistent movement from occuring. The objective of bedding and floating the barrel is to have the barreled action and stock in exactly the same position related to each other every time the gun is fired.

Mike

[This message has been edited by Mike375 (edited 10-24-2001).]

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Originally posted by guntoter:
Can someone enlighten me as to exactly what glasbedding is?
From what I can pick up, it's a layer of glass beads to seperate your barrel from your stock? I have a Ruger M-77, 7mm Mag.
I've got a Leupold on it and am very happy with it. (with Nosler hand loads)
Would I see a difference from glasbedding or is that for the fancy rifles?
And then, what about plastic or steel bedding?

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You are correct in a way the "glass" came from fiberglass...the current glass bedding is made from a two part epoxy such as accuraglass/devcon and others such as steelbed...this gives more complete contact with the action and bbl area and seals it from moist air as unsealed wood can absorb moisture and expand....the "glass" won't do that....as to your gun....MOST? guns will do better with glass bedding than regular factory inletting.....but some come with that ammount of contact that the gun likes and shoots well from the factory...get it moist or when the wood deforms over time it will shoot less well....sometimes....recoil will compress the action recoil area and change the contact....glass bedding works well for allmost all guns and even it has to be touched up in high recoil or abused guns after several years.....the gun doesn't have to be fancy...you just have to want consistant performance from the load/gun in all weather/climate conditions you are likely to encounter....glass your gun? I would but then I always think that even a good shooting gun can do better....good luck and good shooting!!!

Oh, I see.. Thanks guys.
So really, my current shooting technique of 3 rounds, let 'er cool, three rounds would probably not see anything. I'm already getting groups of about 2" at 200 yards. I would need to shoot enough to really heat things up to see how bad things warp...
Like say 12 rounds fairly quickly and see how bad it gets out of whack?
On the other hand, it's rare that I would shoot that much in a row, so maybe I should just shut up and shoot eh?

Guntoter,

Different parts of your rifle bend, flex, vibrate and shift to one degree or another every time you fire a shot. The size of your group is based in part on whether everything bends, flexes, and vibrates the same for each shot, and whether it settles back to the same place after the shot.

Glass bedding maintains a constant position between the receiver and (sometimes) barrel, and the stock. It reduces vibration and flexing of the barrel and receiver. In the one rifle I've glass-bedded, it didn't reduce the size of a 3-shot group very much but it made the groups more even -- neat triangles instead of long strings.

If you are shooting 2" at 200 yards, you probably have a pretty good barrel. You will only know whether glass will improve your bedding, if you do it. If any of my rifles shot 2" at 200 I probably wouldn't bother. If it ain't broke ...

Guntoter,
The other guys covered the mechanics of glass-bedding very well. I just wanted to say hi and welcome a fellow Arvadan!