Originally Posted by
Mozella
No. No. No.
Hiring someone who is highly skilled/experiencedand who rightfully charges plenty of money for his time to do something which is easy, cheap, and requires nearly zero talent makes no sense. It's kind of like hiring your Doctor to mow your lawn. Do this kind of simple stuff yourself. Here's how I bed my actions and pillars in one easy step.
Enlarge the stock forearm so the barrel will free float and then wrap some masking tape around the barrel to set the forward elevation. Add or remove tape and use a piece of thin paper as a feeler gauge to get the barreled action sitting at the correct elevation. Then use a Dremel tool to remove stock material so that the bedding job isn't too thin. Be sure to enlarge the well for the recoil lug too. Leave a tiny undisturbed landing spot for the aft end of the tang which will control the elevation of the rear part of the action. When you're done and put the barreled action in place, it should rest on the tape wrapping at the forward end and the very aft part of the tang at the rear. Everything else should have clearance for the upcoming bedding material. I prefer Devcon 10110.
Measure the required length of the two (or three) pillars. Buy a 1/8" brass pipe nipple at your local hardware store and cut your pillars a little bit long. Chuck the pillars in a drill press or even an ordinary drill motor and use a file to square up the ends. Of course, if you have access to a lathe, use that.
Now buy two cap screws, the kind that takes an Allen wrench, with the proper thread to fit your action. Check the specialty boxes at your local hardware store. The OD of the screw head should be larger than the ID of your pillars but smaller than the OD of your pillars. In other words, you can use these screws to firmly mount the pillars to the action but the heads should be small enough so that they don't prevent you from dropping the action into the stock when it's time to do the bedding.
Wrap masking tape around the shank of the screws so they will just slip inside the pillars. This keeps the pillars centered up properly.
Use a Dremel tool to make some nicks on the outside of your pillars and scratch sand them with coarse sand paper for a better bond with the epoxy.
Wax everything except the pillars. Be sure to de-grease them at the last minute. Now, using your modified action screws, bolt the pillars to the action.
Drill out your stock to accept the pillars and put some gouges in those enlarged holes using a small cutter on your Dremel tool. The idea is to provide grip for the epoxy so the pillars can't pull out.
When you're all set to bed, start with a stick or screw driver dipped in the Devcon 10110 and goober up the inside of the pillar holes in the stock. Smear the Devcon on the action and pillars as well as the stock. In other words, coat both surfaces with a generous amount of bedding material.
Squish the action into place and keep pressing as the action slowly settles into the correct place. That will be when the end of the tang stops on the little undisturbed landing spot you left at the rear and when the several layers of tape on the barrel comes to rest on the forearm. At this point the action should be resting on those two hard points at the proper elevation.
I wrap the action and stock with plastic electrical tape stretched with a lot of tension to hold everything in place. Masking tape doesn't have enough stretch. Some folks use home made rubber bands cut from an inner tube. Bungee cord will work too. The idea is to secure the action to the stock so it won't move, but without using a big C clamp or other device which might stress the action. Remember, unlike some methods which use the action screws to pull the action into place, this "all at once" method can't use the action screws to hold things in place, so you'll need something elastic to do the job.
Clean up the mess including Devcon squeezed out around the lower end of the pillars. I buy bulk generic Q-tips for this job.
The next day, remove the temporary action screws and knock the barreled action loose. Clean up as necessary and then use a cylindrical end cutter on your Dremel tool to trim the lower end of the action screws to exactly the correct length. If you've measured carefully and made your pillars only a tiny bit too long, you should only need to remove .010" or so. Then bolt on the bottom metal, trigger guard, or what have you using regular action screws.
This one step method gives you an accurate, stress free (both mechanical and mental) bedding job.
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