Manners Micro Chassis Input?

[Shane Lindsey]

I am not bashing Manner's. I have/have had many of them with, without mini chassis and now with micro chassis.
I simply made the notice of a shift in my POI after nothing changing. Previous to that, multiple range sessions with no change. Then a well known member states his GS beds them. Made me think. Let two or more be a witness...

 

[jayman07770]

I have two Manners stock with micro chassis and it's a little heavier then my other carbon fiber stocks. If you don't mind the little extra weight and normally have to pay a gunsmith to do glass bedding. I would recommend just getting the micro chassis. My other glass bedding stocks shoot just as good.

 

[Phil Rizzo]

Manners is my choice on several builds.
They are my #1 look when I put components together.

 

[lancetkenyon]

I have two LRH w. Micro Chassis. No issues with them.

 

[w8n4rut]

I would bet 90% won't need anything, and if I was going to order another I would get the chassis again. I really like them and isn't a big deal to drop a little bedding compound in the lug if it does need it. I really like the design and how the bottom metal fits.

 

[w8n4rut]

got this one from the battalion

 

[Kimber7man]

I have an EH-SL back at Manners getting inletted for a micro chassis M5 DBM. Will let you know what I think when I get it back.
Have a PH with mini chassis and it works great.

 

[Buzzsaw]

agree with rob01, gunsmiths hate the micro/mini chassis. they cost them $$$

You really don't need a gunsmith to build a VERY accurate rifle yourself. A few tools and you're in business.

 

[ntsqd]

The fundamental problem with a chassis of any type is that they can be precision machined to a gnat's eyelash and when you put a factory action in it that precision doesn't matter. The reason why is because factory actions appear to all be hand polished, and that polishing makes them not round, not a consistent diameter, and just generally not true on the OD.

My advice is regardless of what the chassis maker says, bed a factory action. A custom action may or may not be hand polished and I'd try those first before automatically bedding them.

 

[Rob01]

Who is hand polishing actions? lol I have put at least 5 different factory 700 actions in multiple mini chassis and they all shot very accurately. None hand polished but they had custom barrels installed.

 

[KH_Outdoors]

I have a Manners LRH ordered with the Micro Chassis. I'm wondering now if I should have just gone without the chassis and had it pillar bedded it. Does anyone have any experience with the Micro chassis? If so, how has it performed for you?

I recently asked a reputable builder if he beds the mini & micro chassis's from manners and same as @Phil Rizzo mentioned, its about 50/50.

Of course I asked why and in what circumstances they would or would not? Here's the takeaway:

When using the Mini & Micro Chassis style Manners, he'll usually bed 30 & 338 caliber builds, and then up to 7mm calibers usually do not need it. When he does bed the Chassis, its usually just the recoil lug area.

This seems to make sense to me anyways given the fact that larger cartridges have more recoil, and hence more vibration/flex/movement in said stock (captain obvious here right?...)

Also, taking into account that these Chassis are designed to be somewhat universal and have to have additional tolerance in order to fit many different actions. The most perfect fit will always be achieved by bedding YOUR individual components together.

Is it NEEDED? Well, not necessarily depending on your expectations, goals, and individual setup. Are you building a 6.5 creed for NRL? Probably not. Are you building a 300 PRC for long range hunting or similar? Probably going to gain something from bedding there.

There is a happy medium to everything and everything has limitations. At the end of the day you can certainly just test it and decide for yourself. It's not a big deal to forgo it up front, then bed it after.

 

[ntsqd]

Who is hand polishing actions? lol I have put at least 5 different factory 700 actions in multiple mini chassis and they all shot very accurately. None hand polished but they had custom barrels installed.

Remington was and may or may not still be, Savage does, Winchester did and maybe still does, no idea whom all else. I'd say that you've been lucky. The Rule that breaks all other rules is that it only takes one exception regardless of how many fit the rule.

I own that exception. It needed .015" of shim on one side to make the rail parallel to the raceways. This on an action that looks round. Until you measure it.
My advice is worth what you paid me for it, but I won't tolerate it being made fun of.

 

[Rob01]

Remington was and may or may not still be, Savage does, Winchester did and maybe still does, no idea whom all else. I'd say that you've been lucky. The Rule that breaks all other rules is that it only takes one exception regardless of how many fit the rule.

I own that exception. It needed .015" of shim on one side to make the rail parallel to the raceways. This on an action that looks round. Until you measure it.
My advice is worth what you paid me for it, but I won't tolerate it being made fun of.

Not making fun of you but never heard of hand polishing actions and this causing issues with chassis systems. Still have one factory action a 1993 700 action I use and must be lucky as it's not an exception to the rule. None of my custom actions have been a problem either. I was only speaking of Manners but I had also used other chassis that never caused issues either.

Bottom line is I would try it before worrying that it won't work and paying a smith to bed it.

 

[ntsqd]

All of the US rifle mfg's used to advertise that their actions were hand polished, some made a big deal out of it. And by "polished" I'm also including the 'graining' of stainless actions. Round factory actions start out as bar stock. Depending on the material that may or may not be actually round either, but the OD dimensions of the actions are such that those surfaces had to be machined because they are not a common bar diameter. Which means that at one time their were round and true. Hand work of any type is notoriously inconsistent.

My exception looks round and the same diameter over it's whole length to the bare eyeball. It is not. I forget how much the diameter varies down the length, but there is no way it will sit in a chassis of any type and not wobble or rock or otherwise be stable. It's variance is easily measured with a dial caliper.

That hand polishing would be replaced with some more efficient method stands to reason, but there are a lot of actions out there and this replacement is a fairly recent thing.
I've never seen evidence that any of the custom action makers hand polish or grain their actions. Those I would expect to be round and the same diameter over their length (or square as some of them are), and to sit in a chassis correctly.

So based on my personal experience with firearms and professional experience in mfg I'd bed a factory action and not bother with trying it first. I'd try a custom un-bedded first and frankly be disappointed in it if I did find that it need to be bedded. This is not something that I would pay anyone to do. There are plenty of threads here on the topic of bedding rifles that most should be able to do this work themselves.