Skim bedding?

Skim bedding, in my professional opinion, is a waste of time.

IF a rifle is going to be bedded, it should be done with a volume of material (in most cases epoxy) that's of sufficient thickness to deliver a clean presentation in addition to increasing the surface area contact with the action.

Essentially you lather up your receiver in a coat of wax to prevent the resin from sticking to it. Then you apply a layer of epoxy (everyone has a pet favorite) to the stock and squish the two together. Once the resin cures you pop out the receiver (hopefully) and clean everything up.

The idea is to provide a tension free nest for the action to sit in. The resin should seal off the underlayment and make the stock more resistant to changes in weather.

There's varying degrees of success with this. I'm fortunate to have a lot of experience with stocking guns and I have unique tools at my shop. Here's one of mine:

DSC_0021.jpg



This unfortunately is often a typical example of others who attempt to do it. Decide for yourself what you'd rather have.

Hope this helped.

C


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Nice. So what tools are you referring to? My dad has an excellent wood shop, perhaps I have access to what I need already.

Hicks
 
Man, that is an awesome looking stock and shop. I'm jealous of both but I wouldn't know what to do with most of the stuff in the shop.

I have some questions about bedding too. Is skim bedding useful in a stock like HS's where you have the aluminum bedding block? I have also read that in these stocks you can just bed the recoil lug is this true? (seems much easier for the inexperienced like myself) And lastly should you bed the whole recoil lug area? If not how do you just bed the back or everything but the bottom etc.?

Sorry for all the questions but I am a little confused on what is best for me to do and how to do it. I have bedded 2 bedding block rifles: one full skim (HS) and one just the recoil lug (B&C Medalist) but I bedded the whole lug area on both and I'm just not sure if I screwed up. I am considering doing this to my new sendero but I want to make sure it is worth the effort and if it is I want to do it right.

Thanks in advance for the help. Every time I have asked for advice on this forum everyone has been a great help.
 
So Chad,

What am I to do with my HS Pro Series that only contacts the action in 3 places??? If skim bedding is a waste of time I am assuming there is some alternative?

Daniel
 
Awesome work there, very clean. Although I don't see anything wrong with the bedding in your second pic apart from the fact it hasn't been cleaned up and trimmed of excess bedding compound, other than that it looks pretty good to me.

Phil
 
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