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I'm aware of the factory recoil lug's imperfections and inconsistencies. Is there anything wrong with using the factory lug, so long as it is bedded? Would bedding the lug take away the adverse affects of the imperfections in the factory lug?
The imperfections in the lug affects more than the bedding. Think about where the lug goes. It goes between the barrel nut and the action. What does this mean? That means that the barrel nut is not tight all the way around, but on the high sections of the lug, it is also not sitting flat against the receiver. On the other side of things the receiver is not truly flat either unless you have had it faced. The barrel nuts are fairly true.
9 times out of 10 you will not notice a difference in changing a recoil lug, but if you trying to squeeze every bit of accuracy out of a gun, it sure is something that can not hurt.
$20 and 15 minutes are were worth it to me. A recrown didn't hurt either. The best bang for the buck was bedding though.
If the action face is out of square a new flat lug will probably set out of square to the stock shoulder anyway. If the action face is .010" out of square the new lug will be .010 out of square. If down the road you would have the face squared the lug will be set back equal to the amount needed to square it, so you would have to doctor or re-bed the lug area anyway, new lug or not.
I straighten, square and true all my actions, so replacing the factory lug is just a normal part of the routine. If for some reason I wasn't going to do all that work I wouldn't waste my time just replacing the lug for zero gain.
Bill
To me it simply comes down to, what are you going to use the rifle for? What rifle is it? If it's simply a hunting rifle it should group well enough from the factory to do the job, any of my hunting savages will do very good groups for hunting. They all will do sub moa at 100yds when i can do my part. The key here is to practice, the more rounds down the barrel the more you learn what it wants.
If you plan to use it for b.r. then plan on making a lot of changes depending on what the class is. blue