I'm interested in why no one has mentioned shell bedding. The argument appears to be either all or nothing ie pillars or plain wood.

My Mauser sporters have shell bedding around the front screw and recoil lug and the rear screw with no glassed in pillars. This works for me and apart from the ultra varmint crowd is still thought to be the business in the UK.

1894, mate whats shell bedding?

Bakes

1894----

I would imagine that's still the most common form of glass bedding. It just makes perfect an already good inletting job........or improves a bad one.

Shell bedding is just the filling of all air spaces with epoxy.

In fine custom rifles the glass is thinned with acetone and acts more as a sealer to the stock than mechanical aid.

An alternative to that, for wet weather hunting with wood stock guns, is to fill any air spaces with 3M electrical silicon sealer. It acts as a replaceable "gasket" that's totally inert and non-hydroscopic. Bob Emmons describes it in the Audio Tape Series available from American Custom Gunmaker's Guild

In my experience, it's best to use a flexible glass when bedding thin cross-sections.

ALL materials change with temperature. I'd rather have a bedding material that reacts close to the same as a stock. Flexible glass changes with the stock and the possiblity of cracking of the bedding is reduced. Simplicity is good in guns, in my opinion. The least amount of materials interacting together with different mechanical proterties, the better.

(Browning learned this lesson the hard way in the 1970s with a brittle stock finish that crazed when taken from warm to cold.)

Just to put my two cents worth in, I have to agree with Malm and D'Arcy and all of the rest of the pro-pillar bedders. I've pillar bedded quite a few rifles that were stocked by some of the best in the business, with absolutely flawless wood to metal fit. They ALWAYS shot better afterwards and more importantly ALWAYS retained POI better after they had been pillar bedded. The proof is in the results, not in some some esoteric theories that are stuck in the past. Yes, pillar bedding is quicker and is a money maker for a riflesmith. Just because something takes less time doesn't mean it isn't better than a method that takes longer. Sorry, just too much indisputable proof otherwise.

John, I'm not at all surprised with your experiences. I started using pillar-bedded rifles over fifteen years ago, and all other aspects being equal, I simply won't order a rifle without that design feature as an integral part of the package.

KS, there's room for luck sometimes. I had a factory Remington 700 in .338 Win. Mag. back in 1988. At a gunshow, I picked up an HS Precision stock for it. My fitting proceedure was simple: I bolted the barreled action to the stock, torqued the screws as per HS's recommendation, and that was it. Just for kicks, I applied inletting black to the bottom of the metalwork just to see how everything fit. There were some obvious (minor) imperfections in the fit, but I re-tourqued the screws and shot the rifle anyway. I produced groups of just over 1" at 100 yds. with handloaded 225 gr. Hornady's (sort of a random load), so I hunted with the rifle, shot a deer and and elk with it that season, and everything worked OK. Later, I sold it to a friend who still hunts with that .338 to this day. He uses the original handload recipe I threw together for it, and he says there's never been a malfunction, plus point-of-impact has never shifted. He doesn't see a need for another medium-bore rifle, 'cause that one works.

AD

Another question from an innocent bystander: I have bedded several rifles, using epoxy to create a "pillar" around both the front and rear screws. I just drill out the screw holes, and fill them with Devcon aluminum. I re-drill the bolt holes after that has cured.

Is there a reason a pillar has to be a separate insert? Dutch.

Mt.Htr.,
Thanks for the reply as I apparantly misinterpeted your post, sorry for that...

Well, I suppose this thread, like many others, shows that there is more than one way to skin a cat...

I still say that the Mauser 98 is piller bedded by design...Our pillering practices may or may not have improved on the Mauser...

Dutch,

The ideal or perfect solution to bedding, would be to have the action, stock and bottom metal formed out of 1 solid piece. It would stand to reason then, that the more you can do to achieve this level of unity, the better off you will be. If you're using pillars, make them metal pillars. Remember, metal to metal.

Malm

Malm, no disrespect intended, but by using the Devcon Aluminum, it's pretty darn close to being metal! A good bit closer than wood, anyway. Then again, I am a firm believer in the 80/20 rule (80 of the benefit comes with the first 20% of effort). JMO, Dutch.

Dutch,

None taken. If your Devcon Aluminum is pretty darn close to metal and it is working for you, then by all means, stay the course...

If you have a joint made up of metal, epoxy and wood for instance, then the failure of the joint will be determined by the weakest of the three elements. The more you can do to eliminate the possibility of failure, the better the integrity of the joint. That is why I said metal to metal. The important thing in bedding is to make the transition from the receiver to the bottom metal and all points in between, as seamless as possible.

Malm

Ray,
THE MAUSER 98 SPACERS ARE NOT PILLARS!

I thought Bill Leeper and I taught you this over a year ago.

What is it that they say about and old dog and new tricks?

The wise man admits when he is wrong.

The issue is deader than a door nail.

You goaded me into it Ray, and you knew you would.

Do I hear the cavalry approaching?

Dagga,
Now would I do a thing like that?

But since you brought it up, that big solid post on the front of the bottom metal that extends up and is fitted into the male extension of the Mauser recoil lug, that when tighten makes a solid steel post and that rear piece of steel that goes over the tang screw that brings the whole shebang into steel on steel. What would you then call it, looks like pillars, feels like pillers, smells like pillars, is pillers....and better yet removable pillars...

DaggaRon,
You CAN teach an old dog new tricks but you can't teach a dumb dog (or in this case a stubborn dog)any tricks! Regards, Bill.

Ray,
You old dawg!

Bill,
You can be the chief, I'll be the injun, and we can take this old cowpoke!
No cavalry in sight. He's a goner.

Ain't nuth'en holding you two back but common since and fear, walk softly pilgrims!

Ray,
We went round and round before, to no avail of understanding on your part. You HEAP BIG STUBBORN!Your only hope is a religious conversion. Try speaking to the Great Spirit. Go on a vision quest and it will come to you, I am sure.

I would like to show you an old Mauser 98 with the true Mauser spacers as you describe, yet with the aged, oil soaked, compressed and softened wood rattling to and fro about the barreled action. Those locked down tight spacers would move as a unit with bottom metal and receiver locked together, separate from the stock.

If the spacers had been properly locked into the wood with epoxy in the correct position to allow the bottom metal and barreled action to mate with the spacers and the stock bedding surfaces, then proper bedding would have been maintained much longer.

It is called pillar bedding, not pillar spacing. Bedding is the key term here. The pillars have to be an integral reinforcement of the stock against compression, yet locked in place, not allowing any movement of the pillar in all three axes of space, relative to the stock. They are bedding contact points on the stock. They do not fall out of the stock when the barreled action is removed. Pillar BEDDING. Do you get it yet?

Is there anyone else here who thinks Mauser spacers constitute pillar bedding?

Where's the cavalry?

Ray is headed for the gauntlet, the injun's are whooping it up.

I count coup again.

It is going to get ugly, Mr. Pale Face. Join the tribe and we will let you keep your scalp.

Big Chief Leeper will have heap big war party if cavalry dares show face.

It will be Old Codger's Last Stand.

DaggaRon---

I love the sound of bugles in the early dawn.

I can see the theory of what you're saying but it doesn't stand up to reality.

Let's look at it this way. Each *material* has a different coefficient of expansion under certain conditions.

The primary influence on guns is temperature. The reaction is very fast and a wide variation is assured in a hunting rifle. It's gonna get hot and it's gonna get cold.

The other variation is from gain or loss of moisture. Some blanks will shrink more than others my losing the same amount of water.

I've seen, and you probably have too, old stocks glassed with a brittle epoxy like Acraglass that have cracked and broken in the inletting when the wood shrinks away from the glass and leaves it unsupported.....

So, what happens to the pillars? They don't have the same rate or amount of change that the stock or the action has. They only serve as a spacer and a rather poor one at that.

I like the idea of ALL of the bedding changing uniformly instead of alterately being undersupported and over supported as the rifle changes at three rates instead of just two.

I reinterate---pillars are locators for actions and act as a platform for the action while the bedding is created out of epoxy around it.

What they REALLY do is prevent the gorilla tightners of round action screws from pulling the action into the stock until it splits.....which is easy to do. A flat bottom action will pull the action screw in two before it will "compress the stock". I've used wood for barrel vice jaws with an eight ton hydraulic jack enough to know what wood will take and how it acts when crushed. You can't do it with a screwdriver.

It's common for custom rifles in good wood to "settle" after a couple years and need up to a quarter turn more on the tang screw. That's .011" for a Mauser. I would worry if it swelled by that much, but to shrink is common and it stops as soon as the stock has stabilized. Usually 2 years in English walnut and up to 10 years in American.

The WORST enemy to stock wood is NOT water. It's oil. Many of the new oily ungeants will penetrate finishes and enter the wood. Wood with oil in it is weak, punky wood and looses it's ability to spring back under impact. Oily wood is soon a ruined stock. THAT wood will compress and create a situation that will wreck the stock.

Pillars are very useful on round actions because the constant pressure on the action is wedging the stock apart. It doesn't compress *between* the action and bottom metal, it wedges it apart. (notice the brass screw through the side of factory Remingtons.....who puts that in a custom stock?? Why not?? Pillars.)

The first aluminum "pillars" I ever saw were made in gunsmith school in 1968 for the first fiberglass stock I'd ever seen. It had no inletting.....just a wad of left-over glass and fabric. We drilled it an stuck the pillars in to have enough to sit the action on while the glass hardened. We bought powdered aluminum from a fireworks supply house to mix with the epoxy instead of the normal floc. The stock would be mostly glass and flocced glass is not as strong as epoxy and metal.

Pillars are still handy when a stock is so bad you have to create a place for the action to sit.

BTW--- D'Arcy is right. Square steel crossbolts are a horizonal pillar. The rest of the action is bedded according to the location of the crossbolt. The rest of the action is is locked together by the recess of the front tang around the boss on the recoil lug and the tang at the upper rear of the magazine box into the rear of the magazine mortice. The steel sleeve around the rear tang screw assures the tang of the mag box never bears against the action from the bottom which causes the action to bow up in the middle and ruins accuracy.

The Mauser 98 is a "unit" action.

All the parts interconnect and act as one during recoil without stress on any one part. The stock is pinched between the bottom and the top with the steel cross-bolt to locate all the lugs and recesses in the right spots.

There's an equal amount of wood bedded tightly and completely around each tang screw. An inch and a quarter fore and aft of the front screw and a bare rim around the rear, but as long as the rear "pillar" is in place the action CANT be bent downward at the rear. The rear pillar transfers the bedding surface from the top rear tang to the bottom by way of a rigid pillar beween them.

toot toot de toooot toot. You're turn.

Glass bedding or pillar bedding, they both work dont they? The tangible difference is splitting hairs IMHO. Sure a wood stock will compress if the screws are repeatedly overtightened, DUH! Im sure that most of us can give examples of wood stocks that have been removed plenty and held up fine through many years.

In the world of mechanics a stretched bolt is the result of torque which exceeds the bolts hardness, its not too likley that this is going to happen with a bolt vs a wood stock but it certianly will with a pillar.

But there is an exception to even this drawback and Ray nailed it! Its mighty tough to stretch a screw that has bottomed out. Lots of heckeling going on but I dont see anyone explaining why, given proper inletting, a 98 action should NOT be considered pillar bedded. In fact the entire action becomes a single entity moreso than a pillar job. A guy can take a properly glass bedded 98 vs a pillar job for any comparison at all and come out smelling mighty fine..

The real difference in comparing any of them is going to be simply the quality of the work. Even I can get good results from glass bedding but I think a quality pillar job SHOULD be more involved.

As for wood going the way of the dinosaurs thats a lot of rubbish, a fine grade wood stock will always fetch a better price than polyuglymagoodstuff.. And the more plastic stocks that hit the market, the more truth that statement holds.

[ 12-08-2002, 20:31: Message edited by: Wstrnhuntr ]

Lot of hemming and hawwing going on here. Theory versus reality eh? Smells mighty fine with glass bedding and spacers, eh?

The cavalry just got massacred.

WOO WOO WOO!

Through all of this dialogue, I have yet to read a single cogent reason for NOT employing machined aluminum pillars in conjunction with glass bedding, regardless of the action employed.

No, pillar-bedding wasn't done back in the 1940's, but who the heck cares.........

AD

Amen Brother Allen!!! Reality shows pillar bedding to be superior. You might talk theory all that you want but the proof is in the performance. Pillar bedding works, when done properly. Always has. Always will. I completely understand what Jack is saying about the differing rates of expansion, but it just doesn't matter. When you have that action locked into the pillars and you are pulling metal to metal all of the way through, it just effectively take the expansion and contraction of the stock material out of the picture. Sorry, I've shot thousands of rifles that have been bedded all kinds of ways and I've seen the proof. Glass bedding is better than hand fitting, and pillar bedding is better than either.

Cross bolts are very misunderstood and they are actually just the opposite of what was stated. Pillars on the one hand provide a channel for the action screws so that they do not put the wood in compression with the tension in the bolts. Cross bolts on the other hand, by their design, do put the stock in compression. They can do nothing else for on side is a tube that is threaded internally and the other side is threaded and fits into the internal threads on the other piece. The force is dispersed by the area if the head of the cross bolt onto the wood surface.

The idea of this is the same principle as post tensioned concrete. If the material is to resist the forces put upon it by tension then you put them in compression. Then when the stock is under recoil those forces that are induced in the stock under recoil have to first eliminate the compression before they put any tensile stress on the wood. The cross bolts just make the stock wood stronger by providing a force in the opposite direction so to speak as it will be receiving under recoil.

[ 12-09-2002, 04:28: Message edited by: Customstox ]

Allen Day, John Lewis, Chic Worthing,

You speak with straight tongues. You may join the tribe if you wish, or live in peace as you please.

The cowpokes who speak with forked tongue should circle their wagons and prepare for war!

I like wood. It is just so pretty but too delicate. Gee wiz! A little oil can soften wood.

If I have wood, I want full glass bedding and pillars of aluminum glued into the stock, besides sealing every pore.

If I don't have wood ( keep your minds out of the gutter fellows), I want a laid up fiberglass stock reinforced and stiff where it is supposed to be, maybe some graphite and Kevlar here and there to go with some aluminum pillars, then you are really gilding the lilly.

You don't have to have wood to get a stiff one.

Well I have read all the posts on bedding (so far) and it seems that bedding is no doubt the way to go , just a question of which method . Can someone point this newbie to a site (or sites) that explain HOW to do this? I gather from reading all the threads that this process is something a guy could do himself. Thanks.

Let's see if these still work:

http://www.charm.net/~kmarsh/glasbed.html

http://www.charm.net/~kmarsh/brass_repair.html

http://www.geocities.com/mousemag32/bed.htm

[ 12-09-2002, 07:57: Message edited by: DaggaRon ]

There are some reasons not to use aluminum pillars in wood stocks and Jack Belk mentioned some of them. It is actually difficult to get a great bond between aluminum and wood for the reasons Jack mentioned- The aluminum changes with temperature and the wood changes with moisture content. This is why I prefer to cast glass ("glass" is, or course a figure of speech. In this case I mean Acraglas.) pillars in a wood stock. Because there is some shrinkage present in Acraglas as it cures, the ideal is to do the bedding in two stages. First the pillars, then the bedding. I will use a metal pillar at the rear of some rifles which have shortage of tang area (like a Mauser). I like steel better than aluminum. For hunting rifles this works fine.
For the BR rifles with wood stocks I actually mill out all the wood I can and replace it with glass. In those cases where i am installing an aluminum bedding block I like quite a bit of glass between the wood and aluminum. I like to use a specific epoxy to bond the aluminum into the stock.
In the end I think glass is good if properly done and think all glass bedding jobs should incorporate a glass pillar. I think metallic pillars are justified in some circumstances as a means of reinforcement. I would pillar bed that 579 but I probably would not use aluminum unless I was told to! Regards, Bill.

I've never had a problem pillar bedding wood stocks with the epoxy I listed earlier and then final bedding in Marine Tex. I do mill an area out before setting up my pillars, this allows room for the Cieba specialties epoxy to anchor in the pillars. The anchored pillars along w/marine-tex provide a stable, inert platform for an action in a wood or composite stock. All these so-called shifting, cracking and unstable problems do not occur with this set-up. Credit Darrel Holland for perfecting and refining this method of pillar bedding. MtnHtr

P.S. I thought this issue was dead after Darcy Echols gave his opinion on the subject.

D'Arcy and I have been arguing over differences of opinion for 27 years!!! You want us to stop now?? HA !!



Let me get this straight----You pay several hundred dollars for fine walnut. Then drill it out and pour in a dollars worth of glue?? HA!



[ 12-10-2002, 10:43: Message edited by: JBelk ]

Jack, Let me get this straight, you pay hundreds of dollars for fine walnut and then you're too cheap to spend a few dollars more on aluminum and epoxy, HA!

To say that pillars aren't necessary or don't add anything in the way of functionality is just traditionalist backlash as far as I'm concerned and is a comment that's without real substance.

Even Earl Milliron became an advocate of pillar-bedding fine walnut-stocked rifles in the later part of his career. He pillar-bedded a fine walnut-stocked .375 H&H for me back in 1986 or thereabouts, and that rifle remained stable ever since. Once the screws were tight, they stayed tight, stock compression was eliminated, and POI never shifted ever again. I sold that rifle a few years ago, but from what I hear, it remains stable and sighted-in to this day, and the bedding has not exhibited any discernable changes. In fact, Earl bedded his own .375 H&H (reworked Enfield action plus full-house metalwork by Tom Burgess, plus, of course Earl's own stock) in this manner at about the same time, and was very pleased with the results.

I've seen best-quality rifles built on old, fully-seasoned, dense French walnut with carefully timed north/south slotted screws that would need to be retighted by thirty degrees of so after 100 rounds, and at that point, those lovely slotted screws were no longer in alightment and the wood began to compress. If you think D'Arcy's blowin' smoke with his advocacy of this bedding method, you're mistaken. [As far as I'm concerned north/south slots belong on rifles that are not intended for serious use]

Of course, pillar-bedding only makes fiberglass stocks even better. McMillan stocks, for example, are something like nine times stronger than wood in the first place, and aluminum pillars (combined with Devcon, etc.), only makes them stronger.

I've often written about my old .300 Winchester that was built by Glen Pierce (Air Force rifle team & national award winner in high power events) that was built on a Model 70 action with a McMillan stock that Glen pillar-bedded himself. This rifle has led a very rugged life, and it's been used from Texas to Tanzania, and from Alaska to Mexico. It's been through horsewrecks, rockslides, snowstorms, rainstorms, temperatures of over 100 degrees F, temperatures of seventeen degrees below zero F, etc. I've largely filled a trophy room with that rifle, and it's been used on everything from Texas whitetails; to Oregon elk; to Alaskan sheep; to African lion. That rifle, through it all, never, ever shifted zero, caused a POI change, or produced any surprises whatsoever. A couple of years ago, I upgraded the scopemounts, but kept the original Leupold 2.5-8X scope it's worn for the last nine years in place. You can take the rifle apart for cleaning, slap it back together, tighten the screws (when they're tight, they're tight!) and the POI remains exactly the same as it did before. A friend of mine brought a stockmaker over to my house one time to look at some critters on the wall, guns, etc., and this boob had the audacity to call this beaten rifle ugly, a comment to which I offered no response but took great offense. In reality, that rifle has taken more big game in more places than that clown has ever seen before in his life, and that episode reveals the distinct division of philosophy and experience that surrounds discussions of this sort.

AD

That rifle is in retirement, but I've replaced it with an Echols-built .300 Winchester that is also pillar-bedded and does not move at all

Allen,
Excellent thinking and exposition on your part, as usual.

Would you dare to make a statement as to whether Mauser spacers constitute pillar bedding?

Apparently this is a tough call for some. How about you?

A mere "yes"/true or "no"/false will be sufficient.

Sometimes there are questions that are answerable in this manner.

I say "no"/false. Mauser spacers do not constitute pillar bedding.

I'll tell you exactly what Bull$hit is: pillar bedding. It is a cheap, easy (lazy) way to bed an action. That is why it's popular, it's an easy way to crank out bedded rifles.

I had a rifle free floated and pillar bedded. It shot 1/4in.

I had that same rifle restocked, properly bedded not floated and guess what: it still shoots 1/4in. We had a norther blow in last wednesday, and in the cruddy drizzle, cold and wind, I shot a .319in group.

Screw stainless, plastic and pillars, you don't need them.

DaggaRon, the answer to your question, (my opinion only) is a big NO!

Frank, I believe your experiences to be true, certainly, but this isn't just about accuracy or even repeatable accuracy in all cases.

My own question is, what's the WORST thing that's going to happen if you pillar-bed a rifle?

AD

A question for the gunsmiths...

If a rifle receives a hard knock that breaks the bond between the pillar and the stock, so that the pillar is "floating" in the stock, how will accuracy in the rifle be affected? What sort of bonding process, if any, do you use in your rifles to assure this cannot happen? Thanks.

Rick, I can't imagine how it would ever happen. The outside of most pillars have grooves machined into them and the wood is rough enough to have a great bond. Not a problem but if somehow it did, it is sized to stay in place, there is no where for it to go.

RickF,

If this were to happen, I think floating pillars would be the least of your worries. The entire stock would absorb the impact long before it made it to the pillars if at all. Pillars are load bearing only in the verticle plane and not impact bearing by design.

The only function of the pillar is to provide a fixed, level, non collapsible column of support between the receiver and the trigger guard assembly.

Malm

Allen,
Thank you for your opinion. I think most of us agree on this technical issue. Some are stubborn.