Hello Folks. I'm new to the forum, and joined up in hopes to learn more about my rifle and hopefully share a little bit of what I know when possible.

I have a Savage 10FLP pre '06 with staggered feed magazine and 4.25 action screw spacing. A Nikon Buckmasters 4.5-14x mildot reticle scope rides on top. The gun out of the box is one heck of a tack driver, but in the interest of trying to improve the accuracy of the rifle, as well as be able to shoot it more often, I've just gotten into reloading. I can't wait to get my "pet" load worked up and shoot some ragged one hole groups! Here's a pic of my first 5 round group at 100 yards after barrel break in, using 168 grain BTHPs. This was about 2 years ago.

[img width=600 height=399]http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e210/Loudcherokee/Hunting%20RIfle/100_3715.jpg[/img]

A little off, but this was my first time shooting a scoped rifle since I was a kid, shooting just a small .22.

Anyways, to the topic title, I HATE the factory stock that this rifle came with. It rests on a bipod, and I can grab the cheekweld area with my finger and thumb and rotate the entire action and barrel away from the stock. Definitely more flimsy than I'd like to have it.

In a few weeks, I'm ordering a Bell and Carlson Medalist A2 stock from Midway. First task at hand of course is to cut the notch for the bolt in the left side to accommodate my inherited southpawedness > , and then fill in the notch on the right with Devcon or JB Weld. Then, it's bedding the stock to the action. This is where I'm having trouble.

I've been reading up, and so far have come to the conclusion that the ENTIRE barrel, from the barrel nut forward, should stay free-floated, as it is now in the factory stock, as well as the tang. It's the rest of it I am having a hard time grasping. I know the basics like making sure to get release agent all over the entire action and portion of the barrel, JUST IN CASE, and to wrap a couple of layers of electrical tape bands around the barrel starting at the nut, and a band every 3 or so inches to the end of the forearm of the stock, to make sure the barrel is lined up correctly. I'm having a hard time with some of the specifics though. How do I keep the bedding material out of the action screw holes, since I can't tape them off as I will be using the action screws to provide pressure on the action to the bedding? Besides a general roughing up, what should I do to prep the B&C stock for bedding? Do I apply bedding material around where the internal magazine sits, or tape that area off?

I've been looking around on the web, and found a couple decent walkthroughs, but I kind of need pictures. The videos on Youtube aren't very enlightening. I did get lucky in that the gentleman I spoke with today at Savage Gunsmithing was gracious enough to give me some pointers, almost a whole walkthrough, but I made the mistake of calling on my 15 minute break at work and didn't have alot of time to ask any questions or take notes. I remember most of what he said, but there was something he mentioned about foam in the B&C stock that I'd have to work with, but I can't remember what exactly.


Thanks for any help you can provide, and pictures would be GREAT! I'd especially love to see pictures of you lefties out there with your modified stocks that weren't available in lefty and you converted them!

LC