The purpose of pillars is to prevent damage to the bedding from overtightening the guard screws. With a properly done pillar bed job it doesn't make any difference how tight the guard screws are. Way back in the late 70's to early 80's, Bob Pease put out a series of articles on rifle accuracy. One of the ways that he used to test for how good the bedding job he had, was to loosen off each bedding screw one at a time and shoot a shot on target. One shot with the front screw loose, one shot with the rear screw loose, one shot with both of them tight. If the rifle splatterd the three shots, then the bedding wasn't stress free. If it put all the shots together in a group, then the bedding was good. Normally, I tighten my guard screws about as tight as I can get them with a t-handle hex wrench on a pillar bed job. My pillars are stainless steel, so I'm not going to compress them. I'll come closer to putting anti-seize on the threads especially stainless screws in a stainless action than I will to use loc tite.
