Lee suprised me when he said "both". As a option, Lee would build your stock with aluminum pillars imbedded under the fiberglass skin. This was primarily done for those who planned an ordinary pillar bedding job. The stock could then be drilled for action screws through the inner shell, the pillars, and the outer shell. Lee was of the opinion that by doing a pillar bedding job, and then gluing (without tightening the screws and then tightening the action screws after the glue-in had set up, a better bedding job would be achieved. I have no doubt that he had experimented with various methods of building Benchrest rifles before he reached that conclusion, and I think that his reputation as a stock manufacturer, and bedder speaks for itself. Have any of you tried this?
It depends upon what action you are using whether a pillar bed needs a recoil lug or not. Most of the custom actions such as a Panda or Bat have enough surface area to use the tang for the recoil lug. If you don't need to sandwich a recoil lug between the barrel shoulder and action face, you are better off not using a recoil lug if the action will take care of it with the tang. A Remington or Remington clone has to have a recoil lug as there's no surface area to use the tang for a lug.
Whether the lug is attached to the bottom of the action just depends upon the model of Bat. Some of them have a lug screwed to the bottom of the action, some don't. I've built quite a few rifles using Bat SV and S actions that were pillar bedded into the stock and used only the tang surface for the recoil lug. Most of the Bat model B's that I've seen and larger Bats have the lug bolted to the bottom of the receiver.
