Glue in advice
- Thread starter Jcarpen
- Start date
This is my opinion but I'll state up front, "It's A STRONG Opinion!"
Absolutely glue the barreled action NOT the action alone.
I won't bore you with a loooong dissertation anilwa style cuz, haters, but IMO you should scratch out and gently rebed/realign under the weight of gravity alone (stress-free) and then clamp/glue using your choice of bonding epoxy. I've had good results using bulk JB's, liquid Acra-Glas and some of the Hysol products after soaking action for DAYS in MEK......
opinionby
(strong)
al
Absolutely glue the barreled action NOT the action alone.
I won't bore you with a loooong dissertation anilwa style cuz, haters, but IMO you should scratch out and gently rebed/realign under the weight of gravity alone (stress-free) and then clamp/glue using your choice of bonding epoxy. I've had good results using bulk JB's, liquid Acra-Glas and some of the Hysol products after soaking action for DAYS in MEK......
opinionby
(strong)
al
Thanks Al. I was thinking action and barrel too. Good tip on the Mek too, I was wondering the best way to degrease it. I did one years ago when it came loose during a match with a cheap 2 part epoxy and it's still holding, but I wanted to do a little more professional job this time.
Mike Bryant
Active member
I'll take the opposite approach...
I bed with the barrel on and with the barrel supported at the forend tip as it helps line everything up when doing the bedding. I glue in without the barrel on. I use JB Weld to do the glue in after roughing up the bedding and the bottom of the action and degreasing the action. I apply the JB Weld to both the stock and the receiver. Press the action into the bedding area with a large arbor press and hold it until the epoxy quits oozing from around the action. Then take it off the arbor press, clean up all the excess epoxy and let the epoxy set up with only gravity holding the action in place. No rubber bands, no clamps, just gravity. This method works. I reglued my Bat into its stock after milling a right eject port in the action and switching bolts to eject out the right side sometime before the NBRSA nationals in Phoenix. Shot a .080 and a .108 with it at Phoenix and finished 13th in the HV grand. Al's method will probably work as well. It all comes down to how it shoots when you're done.
I bed with the barrel on and with the barrel supported at the forend tip as it helps line everything up when doing the bedding. I glue in without the barrel on. I use JB Weld to do the glue in after roughing up the bedding and the bottom of the action and degreasing the action. I apply the JB Weld to both the stock and the receiver. Press the action into the bedding area with a large arbor press and hold it until the epoxy quits oozing from around the action. Then take it off the arbor press, clean up all the excess epoxy and let the epoxy set up with only gravity holding the action in place. No rubber bands, no clamps, just gravity. This method works. I reglued my Bat into its stock after milling a right eject port in the action and switching bolts to eject out the right side sometime before the NBRSA nationals in Phoenix. Shot a .080 and a .108 with it at Phoenix and finished 13th in the HV grand. Al's method will probably work as well. It all comes down to how it shoots when you're done.
Holey Kowww..... that thing about clamping it down and then letting it set is awesome.
My rationale has always been that at the torque I set my barrels, the action ring swells a liddle. And that I've misaligned enough setups that being able to check the barrel channel for "did I get it right" is important to me.
That said, I REALLY like the relaxed set thing......might just handscrew the barrel on one and do it your way after checking for screwups...
Thanks Mr Bryant. Good info. Guessin you use marine Tex to bed? Guess my main question here is if it's better to have the action glued in relaxed without the weight of the barrel (your method) or pre-stressed with the barrel on. Obviously it can be done both ways with good results. Any other thoughts, opinions or theorys?
BTW, Mr Bryant is a real-deal Competition Gun Building Winning Gunsmith whereas I'm a backyard hacker with a place to shoot and a curious bent......... so bear this in mind
Mike Bryant
Active member
Al, there are lots of ways to do things in building rifles. Because someone does things different than someone else doesn't mean one persons way is right or wrong, just different. How well it shoots when you're done is the main thing that matters. If it's competitive when you're done with it, then you've done a good job.
There may have been a little misunderstanding on one persons reply. I use the arbor press to bottom out the action in the bedding making as thin an epoxy bond as it will do. I hold pressure for about thirty seconds to a minute. Then release pressure putting the stock and action in a Sinclair cleaning cradle to let the epoxy set up. There is no pressure of any kind while the epoxy sets up.
There may have been a little misunderstanding on one persons reply. I use the arbor press to bottom out the action in the bedding making as thin an epoxy bond as it will do. I hold pressure for about thirty seconds to a minute. Then release pressure putting the stock and action in a Sinclair cleaning cradle to let the epoxy set up. There is no pressure of any kind while the epoxy sets up.
Mike Bryant
Active member
Al, I was reading it on my phone and a small screen lets you not be able to see everything and who said what.I think you were clear
Mike Bryant
Active member
I use West System epoxy with high density filler for bedding. I buy it by the gallon and haven't had any trouble with it not setting up well although it does last me about a year depending upon how many rifles I've been building. I just don't know about gluing an action in with pre-stressing it from the barrel being on it when its glued in. I've never done it that way. What I have seen when pillar bedding rifles is that if I use surgical tubing to hold the action to the stock with the barrel in place, that very few times will I get a stress free bedding job back when I was trying to bed a rifle like that. I always got best results by bolting the pillars to the action with bedding material between the pillars and the action and setting the action down into the bedding and letting gravity hold the action in place while the bedding compound set up and wrapped electrical tape at the forend holding the barrel up. I just build a few short range benchrest rifles per year with most of my builds being either hunting rifles or long range rifles. All of those are pillar bedded in either McMillan or wood laminated stocks or skim coat bedded if they are in aluminum bedding block stocks. Just about all the short range benchrest rifles are glued in. My old HV rifle that I've been shooting since it was built in 1985 has always been pillar bedded and I haven't ever glued it in. For one thing, it doesn't have a trigger hanger and is built on a 1.700" CPS steel action. I had a Stolle Teddy that I took out of the stock and reglued it earlier this year for a customer. He could never get it to shoot well even though it was in a state of the art balsa & carbon fiber stock. After I reglued it like I described, it seemed to shoot well, but time will tell when he starts shooting it next year during the season. So many things can be wrong with a rifle and why it won't shoot. Hard to pin point the exact cause especially when it's not obvious. You can check the bedding on a pillar bedded rifle with a dial indicator. No way of doing that with a glued in action.