Axis Bedding

[tammons]

How are you guys holding the recoil lug in place in the action when bedding the axis ?

[thomae]

Wow. Great question. I understand where you are coming from with your BSA Stock. I have never done what you are doing, but here is one thought for you to consider. Glue the recoil lug into the recess on the receiver with some sort of glue that is strong enough to hold it steady during the bedding process, but will break down with heat. Bed the rifle, and then pull, the rifle, heat the recoil lug enough to loosen the glue and pull it out and clean it up. Alternatively, you could solder it in and then un-solder (is that a word?). I think the heat from soldering would not be enough to change the temper of the metal, but, others will chime in if I am totally off base.

Anyway, I DON'T speak from experience, just putting out some brainstorming thoughts.

Keep us informed how it goes.

[tammons]

That is exactly what I did.

Tightened the Nut, carefully coated the bottom and 3 sides of the recoil lug slot with shoe polish being careful not to get any on the back side of the nut. Loaded up the threads pretty good.
Coated the recoil lug with shoe polish except for the top where it will be temporarily glued to the nut.

Then glued the recoil lug to the back side of the nut only and temporarily with regular jb weld. Inserted the recoil lug and shimmed it against the nut with slivers of paper.

Let it cure then Bedded the action in the stock. After the bedding was cured, I tapped the barrel on an arm chair and the bond broke on the nut and the action came right out.

Right now the lug is bedded into the stock even tough I coated it with shoe polish but I think I will leave it there.

My thinking for doing it this way was if the recoil lug got glued permanently to the action I could get it off by heating the lug.

If you heat JB weld to about 500-600 DF it turns into putty.

If I did it again I would probably use JB quik for all the temporary gluing.

After that clean up the recoil lug.

[upSLIDEdown]

When bedding an Axis, the recoil lug should stay in the stock when all is said and done. Only the front (facing the muzle) of the recoil lug should contact the barreled action. The top and rear of the lug should be masked, then set into the slot in the action and trimmed away so no tape is visible. Then remove the lug, and use 2 part a tiny bit of 5 min epoxy on top of the recoil lug and reset it into the slot in the barrel action. Make sure none of it seeps into the front surface of the lug. This will ensure the lug doesn't move during bedding. Once broken out after bedding, the 5 min epoxy bond will break, and it will be locked into the bedding compound in the stock where it should be.