Bedding my daughter's Mark II project (step by step and lots of pics)

A couple of months ago I bought my 14 year old daughter a Savage Mark II FV with the bull barrel. I immediately ditched the cheap stock and put it in a Boyd's Tacticool stock. No matter what ammo we used and no matter what we torqued the action screws we always had fliers. It shows its potential and will put 3-4 almost on top of each other at 50 yards but there is always 1-2 fliers about 0.5-1" away. We both got frustrated and I started evaluating the issue. I believe the problem was related to the action/stock fit. there was a huge gap between the wood and both of the action screw lugs on the receiver. Basically when we tightened down the action screws it was only pulling the receiver into an empty space and pinching it. I don't believe there is any way to accurately torque the action down like that. So, I decided I was going to build up the stock and pillar and bed the action. After some studying, I realized this wasn't going to be a cake walk. The design for the Mark II action screws is pretty crappy in my opinion. The only benefit of the design is the screw lugs are flat across and its not like doing pillars where the screws go into a curved action. It just sucks I decided to do this after painting her stock. Maybe this will help somebody down the road, and maybe it is just a repost of what somebody has done before, but I decided I'd post it up just in case somebody could use it.

I broke out my Forsner bits and found the right size for my pillars (hollow threaded lamp rod/pipe nipples).

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...psd3f9da4c.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...psd3f9da4c.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps9cd6e3d5.jpg

I didn't take away material in the stock as the only contact between the rifle and the stock is the sides of the action. I planned on lifting the action and bedding it, so the only thing I did was drill little divots with a drill bit. This should increase the surface area that the bedding compound contacts and should help ensure it stays put. I did take sand paper wrapped around a socket and opened the barrel channel up a little as it was snug to the sides of the barrel.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps2fed5ce0.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps5443ec65.jpg


Next I taped up the rear of the receiver and the barrel. This help ensure that both my action and barrel was free floated. I only lifted the action 3 pieces of tape, just enough that I could slide a business card down the sides freely.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...psc3a68902.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps405e6751.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps1848561f.jpg

Now that I have my receiver and barrel secured where I want it to be once completely bedded, I could measure out and cut the pillars for the action. I used my calipers to get a rough measurement and cut the pillars a little long with a dremel cut off wheel. I chucked a dremel grinding bit into my drill press and held the pillar with pliers. This helped ensure a fairly flat surface to mate up with the DIP bottom metal and the action screw lugs. A little trial and error grinding off a little at a time to get the fit that I wanted.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps491d4d53.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps5de1ff9b.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...psea1b400e.jpg

Before I put the bedding down, I analyzed my plan again. Because the one pillar isn't surrounded by wood and both have only a very thin piece of wood to support them, I decided I needed to be reinforced. I drilled a small hole into the stock at each pillar, going though one side of the stock and going about an 1/8" into the other side. I took some nails and stuck them into the holes. I measured about an 1/8" or so outside of the stock and cut them off there. Using a punch and hammer, I them tapped them in. Once bedded, each nail will act like rebar in concrete to help support it. One of the holes I screwed up on as there is very little space between the magazine port and the action screw. My first time to drill was too close to the action screw and would have shifted my pillar out of alignment if I left it like it was. So I had to move it just a hair so it wouldn't impede proper placement of the pillar.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps8eade9c0.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps731ad37e.jpg

Now its time for some bedding.....But I have to get everything ready. I put playdoh whoever I didn't want the bedding to go and coated everything down that could potentially come in contact with the bedding with some clear Kiwi shoe polish. Well, so I thought (more on that later). I taped up the magazine port and trigger assembly to prevent any bedding getting into it. I used Devcon Steel putty for the bedding material as I have found it to be my favorite material to use. It's pretty thick and very easy to work with because it stays where I put it. Normally I would bed the action/pillars as one step and bed the floor plate and trigger guard in a separate step. Since there was basically no support for the unbedded pillars, I did all of it in one step. I was just too concerned about the strength of the bedding with the thin wood since I had to build up the bedding to fill in a void around the pillars. First I bedded the trigger guard and magazine plate and taped them in place. Both the floor plate and the trigger guard use one action screw and one wood screw. The wood screw hole for the floor plate was very near being stripped in the soft wood, so I filled in both wood screw holes with the Devcon to fix this issue. Next I applied bedding around where the pillars would go, then I set the pillars in place and continued to bed around them. Once done with that, I applied bedding to the upper part of the stock that would contact the receiver. Then I put the action in the stock and snugged up the action screws enough to make sure I had contact between the action screw lugs, the pillars, and the floor plate/trigger guard. I also applied some bedding to where I tapped in the nail reinforcements.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps2fc1074b.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...pse8ab9ebe.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps96f8c507.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps025ee47f.jpg

The wait is over and the bedding is dry. I took the action screws out and the rifle was tight in the stock.....tighter than usual with a bedding job......really tight.....I screwed something up tight. I took a small punch and put it in the action screw lugs knowing I would be tapping into a pretty stable area and as long as I kept the punch centered in the bottom of the lug I would not damage the threads. I lightly tapped and tapped on the punch until the stock started moving and I heard a crack. I cracked the wood in the stock on the right hand side behind the safety. This isn't a critical area but it upset me all the same. I looked back through my pictures and realized like a dummy I put Devcon in the area that I had taped up to support the rear of the action to float it. When I wiped the action down with the clear shoe polish I didn't coat this area very good because I knew it wouldn't come in contact with the bedding material, or let's say shouldn't have come in contact. I got in a rush and didn't think things through and made the mistake. The rest came out as I had hoped.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...psbc2bfd46.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...psfa0f24a6.jpg

I removed the playdoh and cleaned up the excess bedding material with a dremel and a sanding wheel. I also sanded down the excess on the sides where the nails were inserted.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps3b471901.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...pscbf4dac4.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps77261b52.jpg

Finished product

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps667f9974.jpg

Barrel Free floated

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps5e9ecbba.jpg

My screw up and crack in the stock. My plan is to drill a small hole, clamp the piece, put a dab of wood glue in the hole and use a very small screw to tighten it down. I won't screw it all the way in. I will just take a cut off wheel and cut the head of the screw off. Then I will just grind the cut off part below the level of the wood, fill it in with putty, and sand it flush once dry. I guess I am just going to lightly sand the entire stock and repaint it for her. That way I can cover up where the nails were inserted as well.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...psbb62c3ec.jpg

Let me know what you think

N10S,

That was a huge effort to bed the Savage. Thank you for the effort to photo and post the detailed effort. I am a visual person and the pics really help. My only question is this: Was it worth it? Namely, does it now shoot tiny one hole groups without the fliers? Tgt pics?

Irish

Not one hole groups but with good ammo there was no fliers today. Basically 5 shots at 50 yards all touching or inside another hole. It was definitely worth it. Still getting it set up right. Less than 200 through the tube.

Do you have a gauge to measure the rim thickness on your rimfire rounds? I know Sinclair's sells a couple different ones and a lot of the serious rimfire shooters will sort their rounds by rim thickness to help prevent those odd and frustrating fliers.

http://www.sinclairintl.com/reloadin...prod35683.aspx

Nah no gauge. This is going to be for my daughter shooting in 4H competitions. We may get to that but not at the present. I need to adjust the trigger. It's still a little stiff. That should help tighten the groups up even more.

Maybe she could shoot in some of the silhouette matches at Moss Point?

She's got to work on her shooting some. She's only doing benchrest shooting right now since the rifle is too heavy for her to offhand shoot.

Juniors can shoot supported.

Really? She can shoot the silhouettes off the bench, a bipod, or shooting sticks?

I believe they allow them to shoot kneeling with sticks. Tim Spiriti runs the matches. You could ask him all the specifics on the club forum.

OP - your pictures aren't showing up on this thread anymore. I plan on bedding my new FVSR in the tacticool and I think your pics would really be helpful!

Thanks man!

Chris

Yeah because photobucker should jump off a cliff. I’ll see what I can do