Pillar bedding

[Jack Stanley]

Have any of you fellas pillar bedded the Savage 93 series rifle ? It seems to be sensitive to how much torque is holding the metal in place and it doesn't allow for a lot of tightening without distorting things .


One thing the bugs me is the first shot from a cold clean barrel is always low . The rest of the shots make a nice group though . Forty grain bullets hit to the sights and the lighter thirty grain are all low but the sights can be adjusted . That's about all there is to gripe about though .

Jack

[GKB22]

Jack I have never pillar bedded a 93 or anything else for that matter. I always Glass bed my rifles, but I have nothing against pillar bedding a rifle. I have a 93R17 that shoots pretty fair. I may try my first pillar job on this one. I will let U know how it works

[Jack Stanley]

Well sir , the fellas here left me unsupervised for to long with this whole bedding thing . So I got to snooping and looked at some pictures .... pictures always help ya know . Brownells didn't seem to have pillars for the tiny action screws Savage uses so I went to the hardware store downtown . You know the one with the old creaky wooded floors and stuff stuck in every nook of the place .

I went over to the small boxes for large roll pins thinking if I found one that fit close I could cut it to length . Nothing in that would fit but I did find some nylon bushings an inch long and the center hole to small . Hmmmmm ..... forty cents each seemed like a reasonable risk to take .....Risk ??? , yes , you haven't seen my woodworking skills :shock:

With a caliper I tried to measure carefully to get the right length and thought I would need about .555" or so . So since I didn't have a lathe to do the cutoff work , my pawn shop half inch drill press was used . Held the bushing with a slightly oversize drill and used an old sawzall blade as a cutoff tool . Also used that to cut a relief in it to hold bedding compound . The pillar was a bit long so I dressed it down against a file untill it was .558" .

Removing the wood in front of the magazine was with a half round rasp untill there was enough clearance for the bushing . A dremel tool was used to cut out a relief in the wood enough to lock the bushing in place . I waxed everything I didn't want to get stuck and cleaned everything I did want stuck . Then double checked to be sure everything was going to fit right and mixed up a little accraglass gel .

This morning things looked good enough to work on the back one so I used the drill press to carefully drill a half inch hole . I pushed the bushing in untill it stopped at the action and marked outside the stock with a pen . This one was going to have to be cut on an angle so I held it with the vise in the garage and used a hacksaw to cut it . I big file was used to get it down to the line and when tried in the stock it looked good . Relief cuts in wood and nylon and cleanup and waxed things again . Mixed the gel and it was hardening by just after lunch time .

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to see it it worked .

Jack

[LAH]

Hope all that cures your problem. BTW we have a couple of those hardware stores around. Like the clerk says when you ask: It's back there if you can find it.

Post a picture of the rifle when you have time.

[Jack Stanley]

The great part about this particular hardware store is the clerks know exactly where things are . I don't think have ever let me down on finding something to fix one of my "projects" .

Pictures ???? Now THAT is funny I'm fortunate I am able to log on without help . Just picture a standard wood stock and a left hand barreled action and that's pretty much it .

Jack

[LAH]

I was thinking more of pillar bedding pictures. HEE HEE

[Jack Stanley]

Oh that .... :smile: Well I can either use the old AE-1 and use film or take the memory card from the Kodak digital and get pictures . I think I can still figure out how to get pictures scanned into the 'puter . I Might even be able to upload them to my photobucket . Getting them here though ................ [smilie=b:

It's way easier to describe it to you :smile:

Jack

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Jack,

You might try the following as an option.

I have used the Acraglas liquid bedding resin for years and am just soooooo impressed with this product for so many uses.

It is a real mess to handle, and you need your ducks 1000% in a row before you mix the resin.

However, I like to remove a fair amount of wood during a glassing process, and also like to drill the action screw holes out as large as possible then filling those hole with the resin/glas mixture.

Make the holes as large as possible, just making sure that the hole doesn't show on the bottom of the stock around the bottom metal inletting.

When the resin is cured and the action removed, drill out the resin with a bit slightly larger then the Dia. of the action screws.

You do not want the bedding material touching the screws, just like not wanting it to touch the front and bottom of the recoil lug on a centerfire, OR any rifle with a recoil lug.

Once this is done, you have what should serve as a piller to which you can solidly tighten the action screws without the effort of dealing with getting the metal piller just perfect in length.

Keep us posted how things turn out.

Keep em coming!

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[Jack Stanley]

Crusty , I've used the old stuff for several years in all manner of repairs on wood and minor bedding issues . Never have done what you might call a full out bedding job in one shot because you are right you must have a whole herd of ducks lined up just right . From what I know of the old stuff , with enough glass floc in the mix it would have made a pillar . That's an idea I can tuck away untill something like this falls upon me again .

Jack

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Jack,

Another comment here, I pesonally find that at times I think the amount of glass fibers in a kit is a bit short. So, If you check with Brownells, you can get extra fibers.

At least I was able to get about 1/2 a baggie worth one time. I'll likely never use it all up now.

CDOC

[Jack Stanley]

They aren't very generous in the kit with the fiber are they ?? Forunately I haven't had to use a lot of the stuff . Mostly I mix the old formula by drops at a time to fix small cracks and such . The few times I wanted the stuff thick the fibers helped a great deal .

Jack