Ray

I went and searched the archives, but didn't find the detailed description. I'm working over my 99E and had a few questions.

1 How much of the forend barrel channel do you bed? The whole length or just a pressure point area? How much wood do you remove?

2 And when you bed the areas where the buttstock and the forend meet thre receiver, do you cut a small rabbet in wood edges to hold epoxy, or do you bed the end like a butt joint?

3 How much screw tension do you apply to wood/receiver joints and the forend screw, while the epoxy is setting up? Do you torque it down hard, or just firm to keep all of the epoxy from squishing out?

4 What's the best release agent. What bedding compound do you like. Any thing else that I need to know?

Thanks

Elmo

l. I bed the complete forend...I do remove a very small amount of wood (just a ribbon) from the juncture where the forend butts into the frame and around the round part in the rear of the forend center..I also remove the guts out of the frame in that area to keep the glass out of it and I glass that circular area of wood as well and later releave the top to the original shape, then file it flat to the original wood giveing me a ring of glass around the wood.

2.See above, but I will add that sometimes I use a very small drill on my drimel tool and make small indents in the wood in this area to get a better purchase....

when installed I then use a paper towell to wipe off the excess glass that squeezes out of the butt juncture....wax all the wood to start with is always good advise....

3.Screw Tension, when the glass is applied I put the forend on the gun and screw it to centerling of the barrel and stop at that point.

4.I use Johnsons Wax for a release agent, and about any good glass...I prefer Marine Tex from Brownells, but if you have not used a lot of glass compounds I would suggest that you use Brownells Gel, it is just easy to use and mix.

I also bed the butt stock with a ribbon of glass, applied all the way around with a match stick...this is an easy place to get into trouble with too much glass or not enough release agent...and at best it takes a good deal of tapping an easy jiggeling to pop it loose, same on a double gun, but it is well worth the trouble to keep that wood destroying oil out of the wood...

So done your Savage will almost invaribly shoot like a best quality bolt gun..I say almost to give myself some room but every single one I have done shot an inch or under as I recall...

If you have anymore questions don't hesitate to email me with any problems. I'll be glad to walk you through it.

Thanks Ray

This 99 has a hard time producing a 3" group.
It shoots best with lighter bullets at reduced velocity. I'm loading a 150 grn Partition at 2700 fps for it now. Heavier bullets spray all over the place. The best it ever shot was 2.5" with some cheapo no-name 147 grn euro ball ammo that I bought to get the scope on paper. I'm hoping that forend bedding will improve this sort of bad behavior. I've got some acraglas gel on order from Brownells and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Thanks again

Elmo

properly done should cut that in half or better. that has been my experience...Also be sure and clean that bore with Wipe Out and get all the fouling out....Most folks just never clean savages and Win 94's....the use of Wipe out negates the need of overuse of a cleaning rod from the muzzle..

Ray
You are right about the lack of cleaning on those 99's. I had to give it a major J-B bore compound/ Sweets work over when I bought it. I gave the muzzle crown a close visual inspection with a magnifying glass, and it has no obvious nicks or dings but I suspect that 40 odd years of cleaning from the muzzle has taken a toll on the rifleing. If it doesn't respond to bedding, I'm gonna have it recrowned. I'm wondering if you've had them recrowned often and if you had to shorten the barrel much to get into decent rifleing?

I've got the forend off and the barrel channel relieved and and scraped and sanded of any finish. The barrel only contacted the forend from the forend/swivel stud screw to the muzzle end of the forend. The contact strip was about 1/8" wide at the 6 o'clock position. The combination swivel stud/forend screw sits in a countersunk hole and the wood shoulder of the counter sink hole was very soft and punky, so I've drilled it out and rebuilt it with an epoxy pillar. My acraglas wont show up from Brownells for a week or more, but I was wondering if you bed that entire forend at one time or do you do it in a few steps?

Elmo

Ray, What do you think about bedding a take down model?
They seem to either shoot well or not so good. I have a 30-30 that shoots MOA with irons but I have a 250 Savage that started shooting poorly when the wood dried out- a year in dehumidified storage.
What do you think? Will bedding help?

When I first saw this thread I was interested in doing my two 99's then I realized they're both TD's.
I had torn my .303 completly down, except for the rotor and was reassembling it last night and looked at the forend in regards to bedding. The forend/receiver junction is a steel/steel fit so I don't really see any advantage of glass bedding here, but doing the buttstock may help a bit. At the very least it will keep the head of the butt in good shape.

Rob

I thought bedding might dampen vibration in the barrel in the TD and make it a little more constant.