I received my rifle back from the smith, it was to have a been bedded, a trigger job and a new extractor fitted. The trigger is OK but seems to still have a bit of overtavel and a teeny bit of creep (these should be easy to eliminate in a MOdel 70, correct) but the bedding looks a little funky to my eyes right at the ejection port. In the pic you can see there is a gap between the edge of the action and the wood where it was hogged out to accept the bedding material. To my way of thinking this should have been levelled out with the edge of the stock/action so there is no unsightly gap. Would like to hear some opinions on this from others. PErhaps I am too picky??

Thanks, Baxter




**LATER**

Here is a pic with the action removed. You can clearly see the gap. Note on the right/top side of thew picture there is a section of the wood that does not have epoxy on it, nor has it been cut away. This is the original inside dimension of the stock, you will be able to see later how much wood was removed.


HEre's another shot. It's hard to get a good pic without shine etc..




This in this pic, you can see the section I mentioned above. The part of the stock just forward of the bolt notch is basically how the wood to metal fit was prior to bedding. If you follow this line up, you can get an idea of how much wood was removed.


Another shot showing the same section for comparison. You can clearly see the bedding here as well as the approximate wood to metal fit as it came from the factory.


This pic here is another one of my Model 70's, a 375, showing what I consider typical wood to metal fit of a factory production stock. The other stock was at least this tight. The zoom makes this gap seem wider than it really is.


I found this pic just a while ago. It's not very good, but if you look close you can see how close the wood/metal fit was in the area I am talking about.


HEre are some other pics of the bedding job: If you compare the first two in this set you can see the difference in the way the bedding was done left side versus right side. You can also see wood to metal fit on the left side receiver ring. I believe the right side looked similar. Why so much material was removed on the right and not the left I have no idea.





This last pic you can see the fit on the left side of the receiver. Only a minor amount of bedding has squeezed up and no wood was removed. Inconsistent, wouldn;t you say?





Thanks for all your comments, I am figuring out what I can do, if anything. I despise the thought of having to go back to a guy who had my guns for 4 months and ask him to to things again; I simply do not believe I should have to ask someone two times to do a job once. This has been my experience with gunsmiths as of late though and it has been tiring, expensive and frustrating.

_Baxter

Don't know what it looked like before but I wouldn't be happy if I had done it myself much less paid for it.

Well Baxter IMHO opinion I think you are right, if done properly you shouldn't be able to tell it's even been glass bedded (wood is left to touch the metal and the glass is underneath. At the very least there should be no "ugly gap". With a little more work it can still be made to look right. FWIW --- John303.

JOhn,

You and I think alike, I think... As you can see on the left of the pic, you can see the bedding material between the metal and wood. This becomes even more apparent as the bedding moves under the from of the receiver and chamber area. It is quite blocky up there. It's really this gap that bugs me because it looks like it would have taken such little effort to at least make it flush.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
I received my rifle back from the smith, it was to have a been bedded, a trigger job and a new extractor fitted. ?

Thanks, Baxter

Baxter, did the "smith" say which 5th grade school wood shop student he got to do this bedding.

Von Gruff.

I don't think it looks very good either, but to be honest, bedding an entire rifle without touching the finish is very hard to do unless you rebate the bedding slightly like this to avoid the finish. It looks like the stock was a poor fit already, with a gap, and there is no way the bedding wouoldn't show. If you did it as you normally would a stock you are building, the excess would flow out and completely ruing the finish. If I am going to bed one of my rifles, I either do just the recoil lug, barrel shank area (below the stock line, or refinish after a complete job.

quote:

It looks like the stock was a poor fit already, with a gap, and there is no way the bedding wouoldn't show.

I agree, but the bedding should have at least come up to the level of the stock so there is a smooth appearance. It looks like too little bedding was used in the action area and it didn't fill the void.

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
Don't know what it looked like before but I wouldn't be happy if I had done it myself much less paid for it.

+1

If that was My work it would have been done right the first time. But I am capable of screwing up too. So it would have been fixed.

Thing is there is a trick to keeping the wood on the metal. Well it ain't a trick it's just common practice among stock makers that bed actions. You stop digging away wood about 3/32" from the top of the stock. This leaves the wood tight up on the steel.
Thats how it should have been done

Art; I usually mask the whole stock in order not to ruin the finish, just don't leave it on too long. Then as you remove the excess bedding the tape will tell you that you are getting close to the finish, so you can become less agressive with the work. kc - That is exactly what I'm referring to but sometimes there are gaps already so your only option is flush / both. The stock in question can be made to look fine IMHO --- John303.

How was the stock fit to begin with? Was there a gap or did the smith have to open it up to bed it? Maybe he had to fill the gap already there. Just sayin.

quote:

Originally posted by John303.:
Art; I usually mask the whole stock in order not to ruin the finish, just don't leave it on too long. Then as you remove the excess bedding the tape will tell you that you are getting close to the finish, so you can become less agressive with the work. kc - That is exactly what I'm referring to but sometimes there are gaps already so your only option is flush / both. The stock in question can be made to look fine IMHO --- John303.

Yeah I agree.... In a perfect world it would be fine but we all know that there can be some gaps on a pre-fit pre-finished stock

quote:

How was the stock fit to begin with? Was there a gap or did the smith have to open it up to bed it? Maybe he had to fill the gap already there. Just sayin

There was not much of a gap in the first place and there has definitely been wood removed adjacent to the metal. I am not so much disappointed that I can see bedding material there, but that the stuff is not level with the wood and metal. There is a small 'ditch' between the two. This is a Model 70, and while the wood to metal fit was not perfect, it was much better factory than this. I'll try to get the action out and see what it looks like from the inside. Hopefully the term 'mechanical lock' will not be used in my next post...

I don't know why people remove so much wood prior to dumping in the epoxy. That being said with a factory stock you're going to see the bedding unless you just bed the front recoil lug and rear tang which is what I do. I'd rather see a gap than off colored epoxy. Worse than that is what you have. I wouldn't be real pleased.

Agree with everyone here. Even if there was a gap originally, the bedding should have been leveled off even with the wood. I've done a couple of bedding jobs and they are all leveled off (with a much smaller gap). And I'm one notch above "A Bubba", which isn't much.

quote:

Originally posted by dempsey:
I don't know why people remove so much wood prior to dumping in the epoxy.

+1

BTT With more pics

quote:

It looks like the stock was a poor fit already, with a gap

CHeck out the last pic I posted. The fit was quite good.

quote:

Originally posted by John303.:
Well Baxter IMHO opinion I think you are right, if done properly you shouldn't be able to tell it's even been glass bedded (wood is left to touch the metal and the glass is underneath. At the very least there should be no "ugly gap". With a little more work it can still be made to look right. FWIW --- John303.

I agree with others that this would not be acceptable to me.
How would you fix this? Mix up some epoxy close to the stock color and fill the "ditch"?

Blacktailer,

That was where I was gonna go next. I was thinking about shaping back the epoxy by the front ring and chamber until it is at the wood, then to fill that gap lay in some very dark brown, or even black (to just match the metal) epoxy and then bed just that area. Same goes for the part by the ejection port. Until I took the pics last night I didn't realize how different the left side of the bedding is from the right side. QUite honestly, it's pathetic.

To be honest, I thought I was not a good enough tinkerer to be able to do this work but shit, now I know I can do this work myself and much better than this. Just takes more time is all. See my post on the Silvers pad for more fun and games I have had to play.

Any more ideas on how to remedy this are much appreciated. I am sure the combined knowledge here should be able to provide a workable solution.


Thanks!

quote:

See my post on the Silvers pad

If the same person did both the pad and the bedding it is high time to find a new smith.

quote:

If the same person did both the pad and the bedding it is high time to find a new smith

That is a correct statement, on both accounts.

While in no way defending returning a customer's stock in that condition, keep in mind that Winchester factory wood stocks (at least the Pre-FN ones) are a pain in the rear to bed and make look good.

The inletting always has large, uneven gaps. The inletting is frequently off center or canted. Barrels sometimes are crooked.

When I bed them, I try to mix dye into the epoxy in an attempt to make the exposed bedding material as inconspicuous as possible.

All that said, that job looks like shit. It appears that he was too lazy to make sure the epoxy was even across the top line of the stock.

Not sure what happened here:



...but, a "bedding" job where the bottom of the action is left unbedded can be nothign other than a rotten job. And what the heck is all that white crap in the recoil lug mortise?

Overall, it looks like he just tried to tighten the inletting and did a really bad job of it.

quote:

.but, a "bedding" job where the bottom of the action is left unbedded can be nothign other than a rotten job. And what the heck is all that white crap in the recoil lug mortise?

The white stuff is where the surfaces have been scraped or sanded which left it white. I also thought that more was to be bedded than just the lug and tang. As far as the factory stock, it was not bad at all, nothing was crooked, the in-letting was quite good. The only reason I even wanted it bedded was just for security not to have anything 'fixed' or filled in by the epoxy. I mean, real simple stuff here, bed it, give a it a good trigger job and get rid of the creep and over-travel and set it to 3.5 pounds and good to go. Now I am two steps back and cash out. Told my brother after my experiences with gunsmiths and luthiers I just may take up sewing...

Crap job - period. On a flat-bottomed action you only need to bed from two inches forward of the receiver ring back to the mag well and on the bottom of the rear tang. You shouldn't even bed the sides - it is a waste. I would ask for a new stock myself.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:

As far as the factory stock, it was not bad at all, nothing was crooked, the in-letting was quite good.

No offense intended, but if these examples are your definition of "quite good inletting", then we are wildly different in our expectations. Just guessing, but I would expect that (before bedding) if the action screws were removed, one could easily move the action around quite a bit inside that inletting.

Still doesn't change the fact that the bedding job is horrible. I can't believe that anyone would "scrape" clearance around the recoil lug like that.

quote:

No offense intended, but if these examples are your definition of "quite good inletting", then we are wildly different in our expectations. Just guessing, but I would expect that (before bedding) if the action screws were removed, one could easily move the action around quite a bit inside that inletting.

Still doesn't change the fact that the bedding job is horrible. I can't believe that anyone would "scrape" clearance around the recoil lug like that.

No offense taken. as far as the 'quite good' its in reference to a factory stock, not what you'd get from a stockmaker. And no, the action would not move when the screws were out. I had it apart many times. It kind of 'snapped' into the stock and was pretty tight. On the top pic you re-pasted, keep in mind that the wood by the ejection port was removed. It did NOT look like that originally. THere was no 1/16 inch gap between the metal and wood, I would have shat myself and not bought the gun probably if that were the case. On the last pic of the tang, the black space to the right is a shadow. I knew that pic would seem to indicate there was a massive gap and there is not. Just couldn;t get a good pic. Plus, it was the part forward of the bolt notch I wanted to show. I think we are closer than you think on what is good inletting, but the caveat here is that it is a factory stock and that allows for changes the datum point, so to speak, or B Sub Zero for you MRI techs...

_BAxter

I am with CAS. Not a good job, but can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Still, IMHO, this 'smith should have done a better, more uniform job, cosmetically.

quote:

I am with CAS. Not a good job, but can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear

I agree. I'm not one of those guys who wants a 600$ gun to look like a 6000$ gun, trust me, but I would have preferred that the bedding would have been more hidden overall. I just spent an hour picking little teeny pieces of epoxy off the top of the wood and cleaning up as much as I can. Does anyone have a suggestion as to anything I might be able to stain the epoxy even darker to try to get a better match? Wood stain? Not sure what epoxy will take.

You can't really stain the epoxy now, but that shouldn't be a big deal since you really should remove that bedding material and start over. The epoxy needs to be dyed when mixing.

That's ugly as chit....

At least you didn't have to wake up with this



I got 99 problems and a 'smith aint one...

I see a slight problem there.

quote:

Originally posted by TC1:
I see a slight problem there.

The scope is free-floated!

I got my best man on it...


As for the BaxterB, this is worthy of a repeat..

Gunsmithing 101

Not as fast as some see through mounts...

All of the things CAS II stated. You are going to have to most likely take it to a good smith who will remove the epoxy. Have seen my smith do it a couple of times----the mill makes short work of it!!