Building My first gun

Dusty Stevens said:
Not sure what youre asking about a pillar. A pillar bedded into the stock with the action gives the screw a solid place to torque to where the screw going thru a sandwich of any other material besides solid metal will not be solid and the expanding and contracting material will change the screw torque
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Dusty,
youtube is great, I now understand what pillar bedding is and have ordered the kit from Midway.


Bill
 
you can set-up stock in mill and with a 3/16" end mill relieve front and sides of r-lug..... careful not to touch the back seating surface,...
 
There are a lot of little things to shooting off a bench that might benefit.

Making sure that the forearm doesn't have slop in the front bag. Ditto for the butt and the rear. Your rear bag should be super stable. If it is rounded on the bottom and is rocking around, weird things can happen.

While I'm thinking about it, a 3" wide, flat forearm "rider" in the matching 3" front bag can be very helpful. Something like in the following link. That one is for ARs. http://www.midwayusa.com/product/645901/egw-bag-rider-ar-15-fits-free-float-tubes

You have removed the sling swivels, or made sure that they aren't in the party, right?

A 308 has a lot of recoil compared to what we normally think of as a benchrest rifle. I assume that you're ripping the pistol grip and shouldering the rifle. Getting those to be consistent is a big deal.

What kind of optics are you using? A little slop in aiming can grow groups.

How are you cleaning the barrel? You might look up how benchrest folks clean. Bore guide and a one-piece rod are essentials.

If you do get to the point that you want to invest more, you might get a benchrest gunsmith to install a custom barrel. That will be somewhat pricey, but it will be a huge bang for the buck, nonetheless. Get it cut with a custom chamber. You might look into a heavier barrel profile to tame some of that recoil. You might even look into a different cartridge without as much recoil. If you do, I humbly suggest the 6 BR or, perhaps, a 30 BR. They each have advantages.

If you get that barrel cut with a custom chamber, I'd suggest switching to a Harrell's, Jones, Whidden, et al custom *Full Length* die that closely matches your chamber. You'll reap all the benefits of the neck sizing that you're doing now in your factory chamber, without the disadvantages. There is few things as pleasant as reloading with "perfectly" matched chamber and dies.

OK, that's enough for now. Have fun. That's a good shooting 308 you have there.
 
On shooting from a bench:
A lot of fellows tend to put their front bag too far out on the forend when shooting a typical factory stock. For those, it is better about 3" in front of the action. If you have not experimented with this, I suggest that it might be fruitful. Also, shooters tend to think that they will shoot better if they manage their rifle with as near to no contact as they can. With factory stocks, this is not the case....at all. With a proper rest setup, you can really get into a rifle, and still be quite steady.

On the bedding angle, the proper way to check bedding is with a dial indicator, and magnetic base. Do some research on this as it is quite important to determining the quality of any bedding job. Just because bedding looks pretty does not mean that it is stress free. If you do not have a mill, or a friend with one, I suggest that you take a look at the parts and tooling on erniethegunsmith.com, and read every thing there about doing a pillar bedding job.

A few years back, a friend was having a problem with groups that typically had two close and one flier. It was a custom built long range hunting rifle, with all the bells and whistles. I fixed the problem by moving his front rest back on the rifle, lowering his adjustable cheek piece to the point where it barely touched his cheek, and having him pull the rifle straight back into his shoulder with the second and third fingers of his trigger hand. There was more, but the point is that it was all in how he was shooting the rifle. After I had him make the changes, he put four shots into a two with a magnum chambering.
 
thanks for all of your help and input I'm going to take the rest of the week to learn all I can and let you know how the bedding and pillars work out.
1 last question for now. I have made contact with Hart Barrels about getting them to rebarrel my action, has any one use them before? ane they good, great or just ok?

Bill
 
There are many great gunsmiths probably some near you. Its just me but i wouldnt have a barrelmaker rebarrel my action. Thats just not what they specialize in. I always envision the lowest man in the shop chambering while the masters make barrels but thats just me. Maybe they put their best barrel machinist on it who knows. I know its usually a long wait and lots more money usually cause its just a courtesy service. I figure they have chambered a few tons worth but i never see a manufacturer on the equipment lists as the gunsmith
 
Hman1956 said:
so how many of you guys have had good results on you first gun build? any pointers on what to do/buy and where/from who, and what to stay away from doing myself. I have a lathe (a very good one) available at work that I can use. I plan on getting a short barrel and Buying the action complete. any help with this........Bill
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Look no further: http://stevensaccuracy.com/html/benchrest.html Billy built me two excellent rifles. A 6PPC and a 30BR. :)
 
The purpose of bedding is to get the receiver to lay in the stock stress free. The only purpose of the recoil lug is to keep the action from moving rearward in the stock. A quick check to see if your bedding job is stress free is to rest your index finger with no pressure where the barrel meets the forearm tip. I hold the rifle vertically. Loosen off the front guard screw and if you feel the barrel move away from the stock then the bedding job isn't stress free. A better way to check it though is to mount a dial indicator to the barrel resting the indicator tip on the forearm tip of the rifle. Loosen off each guard screw one at a time and check to see how much movement you have between the barrel and the forend. If it's over .002" movement, then the action isn't bedded stress free and won't shoot up to its potential. This works with freefloated barrels. .002" movement at the forend translates to a lot less actual movement at the actual bedding area.
 
Mike,
I would think the if I loosen the screw on the rear guard that the weight of the barrel would make the barrel drop? I understand about the stress showing with the front screw and when I take it apart tomorrow I will check it. the barrel should be freefloating all the way to the recoil lug......right? I got 2 strips of copy paper all the way to the lug before I started the bedding job, and it's that way right now as it's curing.

Bill
 
Hman1956 said:
Mike,
I would think the if I loosen the screw on the rear guard that the weight of the barrel would make the barrel drop? I understand about the stress showing with the front screw and when I take it apart tomorrow I will check it. the barrel should be freefloating all the way to the recoil lug......right? I got 2 strips of copy paper all the way to the lug before I started the bedding job, and it's that way right now as it's curing.

Bill
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Check it with the rifle vertical and there isn't any effect on gravity when you check the bedding job or you can hold the barrel in a barrel vise in front of the forend with the rifle upside down and check for movement with a dial indicator. Doing it that way will negate the weight of the barreled action. A good bedding job is a good bedding job, but most time you'll see the stock move when you loosen off the front guard screw when the bedding is in stress. And quite often the tang is what causes stress, if the bedding at the tang is low, then when you tighten it down tight and then loosen off the front screw the stock will move away from the barrel. Anything under .002" is good, under .001" is great. Make sure and drill out your guard screw holes with a 5/16" drill bit as you don't want 1/4" guard screws touching the stock as they go through the stock.
 
well...... it's not the pretty when you take the barrel out and look into the stock, but it is rock steady for sure. I'm happy with my first try. I did tape off the lug (all but the back) but now I have a question about when I change the barrel. How do I get the lug back in the same spot on the action, will I have to dig out what is in there now and redo just the lug?

can't wait to shoot with it, I'll let you know if it helped.

thanks
Bill
 
so the gun shot well, very well. I was able to keep 3-4 shot .750" groups all day @ 200 yards. what I can only think about the other 1-2 shots being 1-1.25" away from them is ....me, and I'll just keep working on that.

thanks for all the input it was very helpful.

Bill
 
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