Quote Originally Posted by YZ400Man View Post
I am getting ready to bed my Axis 243 into a Boyds stock. My question is do I need to worry about the engagement of the recoil lug. Right now if i tighten the action down into the Boyds stock two bad things happen. First the barrel isn't free floating when the action screws are tight, not a big deal, nothing a little sandpaper can't cure. Second, the magazine won't lock in. I figure that if I glass bed the action it will raise things up just a bit and fix both problems while also giving me a bedded action. What I am worried about is how much engagement the recoil lug will have when I am done. I am not talking about much change, maybe a 1/16 to an 1/8 of an inch. Any ideas or help is appreciated.
In my experience with Boyd's stocks, they're pretty well inletted (if somewhat aggressively) but often with insufficient barrel clearance. You're right. Break out the wooden dowel and 60 grit sand paper.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say you're concerned about the recoil lug engagement. I don't have an Axis, but I think it has a tab type recoil lug which is held in place between the action and barrel nut just like the one on my Savage Model 12. When I bed Savage actions, I simply use a Dremmel tool to remove some material surrounding the action and around the recoil lug area so that the Devcon 10110 isn't too thin. I usually leave a ledge for the tang to rest on to set the rear height and multiple wraps of tape on the barrel to set the forward height. At this point, the barreled action is not touching the stock except in those two spots. Of course, the void gets filled with Devcon up to the area of the barrel nut where I place a modeling clay dam to keep the compound from flowing forward. I bed the recoil lug along with the action after putting one layer of masking tape on the front surface and edges of the recoil lug. The aft face is bare, waxed of course. That provides enough clearance to remove the action but the aft face of the recoil has 100% engagement. In other words, when I'm done, wherever the the action and recoil lug contacts the stock, they only touch the Devcon bedding compound except for a tiny area at the aft end of the tang. The recoil lug is completely surrounded by Devcon with a tiny bit of clearance on the front face and edges.

It's possible I've misunderstood your concern. If so, please clarify.