Bedding an HS Precision Stock

Triple BB

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Just picked up a new HS stock. Knew before I bought it that the warranty stated if you bed it, the warranty is void. Not so much worried about an issue where I would have to make a claim due to a manufacturer defect. Just wondering if the tolerances are that good that I wouldn't see any benefit from a bedding job. Rather not have to spend the time and money to bed the stock if its a case of diminishing returns. Anyone with an HS stock care to chime in.
 
I did quite a bit of reading before I bedded my first HS stockYou're going to find a fair share of people that say they shoot great without bedding and the same for people that say they shot better after bedding. The first one I bedded was a Remington 5r 300 win mag.I did a lot of load development prior to bedding and would be pushing it to say the gun was a 1 moa shooter. After bedding the gun it is a solid sub .5 moa shooter. The second one is a 7mm Rem mag and I bedded it right from the start. It is also a solid sub .5 moa shooter. In my experience I wouldn't use one without bedding it.
 
Mine shoots great and I haven't bedded it but I definitely am not going to say it wouldn't shoot better if I did and considering the quality of the stock in general I cant imagine really needing a warranty, so I would go along with everyone else just from the stand point it sure cant hurt anything! Also my barrel is floated for sure but its not strait with the barrel inlet by a good bit so for me that would be another reason to bed it.
 
The purpose of bedding any action is to get a perfect fit. No stock can fit all actions perfectly and in my opinion should be bedded for best performance.

Sometimes you will get one that shoots very good without bedding. "But" I have never seen a bedding job hurt the accuracy of a non bedded stock.

One way to tell if your stock has to be bedded is to lay the barreled action in the stock, install the action screws (Do not tighten them) and see if the action has any movement in any direction. If it does, chances are that It doesn't fit well enough to hold the action in place every time.

We go to all of the trouble to work up accurate loads and if the stock to action fit is poor chances are that you will never find the 1/4 MOA group much less the 1/10 MOA.

Just my opinion

J E CUSTOM
 
I think all the HS stocks have the aluminum bedding block . I just rebedded a B&C stock with the aluminum block . I would recommend bedding it . I used Ernie the gun smith accu-risers along with 10110 devcon . here is a link to Ernie with some info on bedding these stocks .

NO 6. All stocks need pillars, even stocks with bedding blocks


for my first bedding job , I'm well pleased .

 
To add to the comment I made earlier, Any stock with an imbed needs to be fitted to the action and
In the process of preparing the stock for bedding you often find something wrong that needs to be fixed before bedding.

The most recent case that I can remember was an HS Precision with the insert/bedding block.

While checking the fit for any areas that may need some clearance for bedding, I discovered that the recoil surface for the recoil lug was machined to far forward of the action screw holes buy 1/2 the screw diameter. the recoil surface had to be machined back 1/8" to locate the action screws in the center of the pillars and line up the bolt grove and the ejection port.

Fortunately I can do this work, but if others don't have the machines to do it, they would have to sent it back to the manufacture.

So bedding any stock has the advantage of not only making the action fit the stock perfectly, it will often expose a problem that would otherwise go unnoticed.

A good bedding job requires lots of preparation in order to end up with good results.

J E CUSTOM
 
I appreciate all the comments. I did recognize after reading above there was some play after moving the action around. The other thing I see is the tang on my Stiller action is only a 1/4" thick or so. The groove where it fits into the stock is probably 3/8" wide. Already picked up a box of Acrglas Gel.

Question, I've seen where the glass bedding will extend out in front of the tang about an inch or so like in the photo above. Don't know if it matters, but I've read in a couple books where a few long range experts for whatever its worth are saying the barrel should be free floated all the way to the tang. Any thoughts.
 
I appreciate all the comments. I did recognize after reading above there was some play after moving the action around. The other thing I see is the tang on my Stiller action is only a 1/4" thick or so. The groove where it fits into the stock is probably 3/8" wide. Already picked up a box of Acrglas Gel.

Question, I've seen where the glass bedding will extend out in front of the tang about an inch or so like in the photo above. Don't know if it matters, but I've read in a couple books where a few long range experts for whatever its worth are saying the barrel should be free floated all the way to the tang. Any thoughts.



I'm anxious to see what JE custom has to say on this , I'm not sure either .

I have rifles bedded both ways . I just bought this rifle , and didn't shoot it before I worked on it . it was bedded in front of the recoil lug before , so I just did it the same way . I thought I could try it with the barrel bedded , if it didn't shoot to please me , I can grind it back out . the original bedding was cracked and flaking out is the reason I redid the bedding . the cracking and falling out is also the reason I put the accurisers in . they will act like pillars and keep the pressure off the epoxy .
 
I appreciate all the comments. I did recognize after reading above there was some play after moving the action around. The other thing I see is the tang on my Stiller action is only a 1/4" thick or so. The groove where it fits into the stock is probably 3/8" wide. Already picked up a box of Acrglas Gel.

Question, I've seen where the glass bedding will extend out in front of the tang about an inch or so like in the photo above. Don't know if it matters, but I've read in a couple books where a few long range experts for whatever its worth are saying the barrel should be free floated all the way to the tang. Any thoughts.


The thought behind bedding in front of the recoil lug is that I gives the barrel and action some additional support. There are several instances where this can hurt, One is if the barrel shank is not perfectly straight where it is bedded. (Most factory barrels have tapered shanks or no shank and start tapering at the recoil lug) if the shank is not perfectly straight, as the barrel heats up it can push on the receiver changing the POI.

If the barrel is very light (Small contour) there is no need for the extra support. It however can change the harmonics for better or worse so sometimes I end up bedding a small area in front of the recoil lug on light weight barrels that shoot heavy bullets or have large bores for the dampening
effect it will have on the light barrel.

I normally bed about 1/2" in front of the recoil lug to start with for mid weight barrels and up to 1" for the heavy/long barrels As long as I do a stress free bedding and the barrel shank has no taper it seems to work very well.

I have also bedded in this manor and had to remove some if not all the bedding to make the rifle shoot. (Most of these were light weight barrels that were 20" or less) As we all can agree, rifles can react differently to different things and we make the adjustment in the bedding if we have to.

All Of my long, heavy barreled rifles have some bedding in front of the recoil lug But that does not mean that I would not remove it if it wasn't shooting.

Everyone has there way of getting there rifle to shoot well so there lies the difference in opinions.

I prefer to do everything that I intend to do to the rifle before I start working up loads. I use to think that I could make a rifle shoot without any bedding, and if it didn't, I would bed it to make it shoot better. This worked some of the time and other times it changed the harmonics (Just like working up loads to get accuracy) but the accuracy fell off with the existing load that were once very good.

So that Is the reason "I" prefer to do a full, stress free pillar bed in the beginning and when I work up a accurate loads it remains accurate as long as I don't change any components.

Each rifle may respond differently so some trial and error may be necessary proving that the rule is, there is no rule.

Just my opinion

J E CUSTOM
 
I will say that I once had a Rem Sendero in 7mm Rem Mag that the guy before me bedded himself. The compound he used was a clear light brownish yellow. He mounded it up all around the recoil lug only and got the front of the action tilted too high for the rear to set flat. Just a blob, no straight edges. Never could get it to group, discovered this, swapped out stocks for one not messed with. Got along great then, shot sub moa with factory core-lokts.
 
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