I'll pick up this thread as I perform another experiment with my extra stock which was replaced with a new one by Savage. I'll detail my methods as clearly as possible.
As detailed in Post #18, I had already sanded the stock's action channel and radiused the pillars, and the gun shot OK, but not as good as the new factory stock.
I had already bedded the action with the Pete's Pillars using some Pro-Bed 2000 which has been in my basement for at least 5 years. The job was a complete fail in my OCD book, as the compound did not adhere to my expectation as a thin skim coat on top.
I was able to spin out the pillars, flake off the skim coat and clean everything easily up before it fully cured. That said, I do prefer Pro-bed 2000 for stock bedding, which has performed well for years in my 03-A3 and 6mm wood stocks, as well as my Weatherby Accumark synthetic stock - dealing with the substantial recoil of a 340 Weatherby Mag. In this episode I will be using Marine-Tex for the first time on a stock, which I have used for years on my boats. I will explain the prep work which was done for the first bedding attempt.
So I decided to install Pete's Pillars. They are 1/2" OD, and require 5/8" material removal in order to get a good amount of epoxy material to glue them in.
In order to remove the factory pillars, I used a 9/32" drill pushed through the pillar to align the stock, bottom up, in the drill press vise. Then I chucked a 7/16" drill to just bite into the pillar bottom and spin it to break the adhesive bond. With the drill press off, I pushed the pillar out with the drill. Then I chucked a 9/16" bit and drilled a larger hole. Rinse and repeat with the other pillar. By hand I ran a 5/8" coarse thread tap through the holes to create an increased bonding surface.
To increase and improve the action bedding surface, I gouged areas of the top and the recoil lug face with my trust Horror Fright rotary tool with various-shaped cutters. I also drilled small holes in the gouged areas as well as other surface areas, and finished the action surface with a few swipes of 40-grit. After the first bedding attempt, I took down the inlet top by a few thou to both clean the Pro-Bed off and to increase the bedding compound thickness I could apply. Here is the result:
As one can see above, I dammed up areas of the trigger and magazine inlets with plumber's putty to prevent bedding compound intrusion. All other areas of the stock inletting were waxed with copious amounts of mold release wax (Partall Paste #2 - which I use for making fiberglass boat parts). I also put two layer of painting tape under the action's tang in order to maintain the necessary float. All other holes and slots are dammed with putty. For guide posts, I got two long 1/4 x 28 hex head bolts, cut the heads off, and threaded the other end with a 1/4 x 20 coarse thread die. I waxed the heck out of them, threaded the fine thread into the action, and will use nuts on the coarse thread end to index and secure the pillars to the action. The extra length allows for an easy and centered drop onto the action (I drop the stock onto the action). The small recoil lug indexing tab area voids are filled with wax, and I taped off the bottom, sides and front of the lug. The entire prepped action and some of the barrel is then sprayed with a couple coats of Mann Ease Release 200. Much easier than wax, and can get into areas inside the action which MUST be protected from sticking compound.
After measuring the action diameter, I first used a half-round mill bastard to rough a radius in the top of the pillars, and then finished it with a scrap piece of 1" PVC pipe (1.3125" diameter) with a wrap of 220 grit, careful to keep the file and pipe perpendicular to the pillar. A better method would have been to chuck a large drill or mill in the drill press and create it that way, but I don't have the correct size. Inspecting the first bedding attempt, I noted that the front action screw pillar was slightly low in the front. You can see that it took a dab of compound, so I fixed that. The fit should now be perfect, LOL! The Pete's Pillars are machined quite smoothly, and there is very little bonding area in the stock to begin with, and even less left after enlarging the holes. So I roughed them up with 40 grit, and gouged vertical channels in them with the HF rotary tool to create an anti-twist epoxy lock.
More to come as I continue today. Next steps are a final and excrutiatingly precise bedding surface and pillar cleaning with acetone. Then comes the big squish!
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