Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum and I have found similar threads on this website, however, I still had some questions so I decided to make a new one.

This past fall, I bought a Savage 11 Trophy Hunter XP (plastic stock, accutrigger, 22" factory thin barrel). I put 30 shots through it and I was not very impressed. At a 100 yards, I was making 2-3" circles, with cold bore shots about 6" from the middle. I put the gun away when I had to go back to school, but now that it's almost over, I want to make my gun more accurate.

This will be my first bedding job ever. I have been doing research for the past 2 weeks on how to bed rifles in general and how to bed Savages specifically. The area under the receiver and around the action screws seems pretty straight forward. Here's what I found out so far as far as the critical parts:

-float the rear tang
-bed the back of the recoil lug and put 2-3 layers of tape on the sides and the front of it

I bought a classic, laminated stock from Boyds that I am also going to pillar bed. I found out that the rear pillar must be notched at the top or else the sear will not pass. I ordered the following set of pillars:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gunsmith-Acc...item2c6d916254

Now, I am planning on first installing the pillars before I glass bed because it just seems easier to do. It makes sense to me that one would want to do that first so that when it comes to glass bedding, the action with guide screws will sit true and centered on top of those pillars. However, I have read that some people pillar and glass bed all at the same time, but that seems more difficult. Please correct me if the way I want to do it is not the proper one.

Ok, so here are my questions. I've tried to find an answer but I couldn't find a definite one:

1. Should I bed the barrel nut? I have read that people bed first two inches of the barrel for support if it's a heavy one, however, I have the light and thin barrel from the factory. Can bedding the nut actually hinder/improve the accuracy in my case? I am not planning on swapping barrels in the future or anything like that.

2. When I set the action in the stock and I am waiting for it to cure, should I put the action screws in and screw the action down or should I just put the guiding screws in and wrap the action down tightly with a tape?

I will be using Brownells Steel bedding kit for this project. I've read it doesn't run at all and is fairly easy to work with. I also read that it's not going to sugar and have a potential of cracking like glass.

That's all for now, I apologize for any grammar mistakes if there are any and if something doesn't make sense. I don't usually stay up this late. I will update the post if I have any more questions. Also, I just got off the phone with my dad and he put the action in the new stock to see how it looks and fits and, thankfully, it fits like a glove. He then put it back in the plastic stock and as he set it in, the front of the receiver rested on something and he was able to rock the barreled action back and forth. He was not able to adjust it so that it would sit in there properly so yeah... maybe that's where my accuracy problem was.

Anyway, thank you for reading this wall of text and goodnight.