Help glass bedding Encore barrel

[Rickk]

Has anyone glass bedded their Encore barrel? I got an extra walnut forearm and would like to mate it to my 30-30 barrel. Could someone walk me through the process or point me in the right direction please?
Thanks in advance!
Rick

[largom]

Mike Bellm has a ton of info on Encores and Contenders on his web site. Do a search for Mike Bellm or Bellmtcs.

[rhbrink]

I have owned several barrels for the Encore and just never saw a reason to glass bed the forearm. I did take one and did a little work on it to tighten it up some, been a while back but seems like it had a ridge down the middle of the forearm that I removed making sure I had good contact around the screw holes and on the bottom then used a bit of lock tight on the screws and tightened it down some shot great.
Are you having some kind of a problem? If so let us know maybe someone could offer a fix?

[Rickk]

Not a real "problem," maybe, but the gun shoots nice groups after it warms up. But the first 3 or 4 shots from a cold barrel make a larger group than the following shots. I thought perhaps bedding would help have that first shot from a cold barrel shoot to the same point of aim.

[montana_charlie]

Never even held an Encore, but...
I would make sure the forestock is as tight to the barrel as possible, but would allow no wood to metal contact at the rear face of the forestock. A paper thin space (at the barrel lug) is sufficient.

If an Encore can be improved at all with glass bedding, I suspect it would be the butt that would benefit.

CM

[rhbrink]

What montana charlie says make sure that the ears on the forearm that come back over the sides of the action are not touching the action.
Welcome to the real world of break open single shots. could be the barrel pin is a little undersized? Are these reloads?
Cast boolits? Could be lube?
Mine a .223 often shoots about a half minute high for the first shot then the rest group fine. Still working the buggs out of this one but getting there. One thing I have learned with this one is to shoot it dirty, don't clean it if I do it goes nuts for 5 or 6 shots kindof like you are experiencing.
A little more info would help what caliber is it?
What kindof loads?

[Rickk]

Thanks for the info so far.
The caliber is 30-30.
The boolits are either Lee C309-170F or Ranch Dog TLC311-165RF. Either are sized to .309 and Lee Tumble Lubed. Cast from WWs.
25.5 or 27 grains 3031 powder. (The RD boolits have to be seated shorter due to the short throat on the Encore bbl, thus needs a bit less powder)
No leading. Wonderful small groups after the first few shots.
I am not complaining, only seeking to do "a little better."

[rhbrink]

Rimmed case that's a good thing, I'll bet that what you are experiencing is just a slight lube problem, temperature, maybe the barrel dries out some? Takes a few rounds to reseason the barrel thats just something boolit shooters have to put up with, maybe a lube change would help maybe not. Hopefully someone else will jump in with some ideas. Really don't sound like too much a problem to me. Good Luck!

[JSH]

If the forearm screws are a bit to long, they will bottom out on the barrel. The encore system is different than the contender. I found the contender to be a little more forgiving as to forearm issues.
I fooled with an encore forearm and pillar'd the back screw and floated the front one in a slotted pillar. That allows the barrel to move rather than try to flex when it heats up in extended shooting sessions where it does not have time to cool down. Did it make any difference? I saw nothing at 100, but when i got to 200 it was better on paper and steel targets when shooting a match.
jeff

[HEAD0001]

I have bedded two Encore forearms solid, and the accuracy improved on both. I have pillared a couple with little success. And I have added spacers with little success. So far for me-solid bedding worked the best. I did not use Accra-glass, I used an auto body puddy to do mine with.

A couple of good tips for the Encore shooting off the bench. Always keep your tripod back as far as you can(closer to the action) when you shoot. This takes a lot of the pressure off the barrel. I can tighten a group up instantly with just proper bench techniques, and they are different for an Encore.

Try bedding one. If it does not work, no problem,the bedding can easily be sanded out with a proper sized dowel and sandpaper. So you have nothing to loose. Tom.

[Rickk]

Wonderful. Finally found someone who has done it! Would appreciate a little guidance as I have never glass bedded before. I assume I need to relieve the barrel channel a bit? Do I leave the area around the attachment screws? Thanks in advance.

[leadman]

Might want to look at the Specialty Pistols website. These guys do some amazing shooting.
800 to 100 yards with the bolt or falling block guns.

[rhbrink]

Wonderful. Finally found someone who has done it! Would appreciate a little guidance as I have never glass bedded before. I assume I need to relieve the barrel channel a bit? Do I leave the area around the attachment screws? Thanks in advance.

Have you done it yet? If so did it help? I may have to try it myself, that 223 is still shooting the first shot high not bad about a half minute high and then the rest fall into a nice tight cluster overall about a minute at 200 yards but if I could get rid of that first high shot I would have a 1/2 minute rifle.

[Rickk]

"Have you done it yet? If so did it help? I may have to try it myself, that 223 is still shooting the first shot high not bad about a half minute high and then the rest fall into a nice tight cluster overall about a minute at 200 yards but if I could get rid of that first high shot I would have a 1/2 minute rifle."

Not yet. So far I have been unable to get someone who has done it to walk me through. Still hopeful.

[montana_charlie]

Okay, Rickk, I'll try to help you get started.
I was hoping someone else would take this on because I have never messed with an Encore. I don't know how the metal parts are shaped, and I don't know how the wood fits to the steel. Therefore, I can't be real specific.
But, I do need to know some general things about the project...

You say you came up with an extra forend, which you want to fit to your 30-30 barrel.
Is the channel in the wood larger or smaller than the 30-30 barrel?

Have you already bought an AcraGlas kit?
Did you get the regular (red) or gel (green)?

CM

[rhbrink]

I would be happy to help too, I would recomend getting the Brownell Acra Glass gel much easy'r to work with and comes with great set of instructions. I'm looking at a barrel and wood forearm as I'm typing this and think it wouldn't be at all difficult to do though I never have done a Encore, lots of bolt guns and a few single shots. The biggest thing is to make sure that you don't have any interlocking surfaces to permently lock the barrel and wood together. Looking at my barrel you would need to get some modeling clay and and fill in the hole up near the barrel where the extractor slides and directly below that there is a set in the lug that needs to be filled and smoothed over, also along side the lower side of the barrel where the lug is welded to the barrel. Then you need to fill the hole for the hinge pin.
On the wood I would under cut the barrel channel about 1/16 to 1/8 inch all along the barrel channel. But you have to leave a small radiused adjacent to the screw hole this is to give the wood some bearing surface as you bed it to the barrel. If you don't do this when you snug the wood up with the glass in place you will squeeze most if not all the glass out of the barrel and wood.
Now comes the fun part, after you are satisfied with the fit you need to put some release agent on all the metal parts, let that dry and then repeat also the screws. Then you have to completely cover the wood finish with masking tape this is to keep the fiberglass off your finish as it will ruin the finish if it comes into contact with the finish. Mix up the glass as per instructions and run a line of it down the barrel channel and put her together making sure that you have enough to squeese out some along the barrel channel so that you have a nice even bearing surface. And then wait for it to set if you have done everything right they will come apart. I like to take them apart after the epoxy and set but not permantly hardened that way just incase there is a slight mistake you can still break them apart.
Hope this gives you some ideal of how to do this and maybe someone else will help out in case I forgot something.

[leadman]

From what the custom barrel makers and wood guys are doing with the Encore and Contender bedding the whole forend to the barrel is not what you want. It appears you do not want the wood or glass in contact with the barrel except at the attaching screws.
Most of the custom barrel makers have a hanger bar system that is screwed to the barrel then the forend is attached to that.

The custom makers that do not use that system appear to be relieving the wood so it only contacts the barrel at the mounting points.
This is the info I have gotten from my research on this subject as I am purchasing a used Encore forend to fit to my Bergera Encore barrels. Why Bergera used a different profile for their barrels is beyond me.

As with all things there can be more than one way to do things that acheives the same results. As was said if you bed it and it doesn't work the glass can be removed.

The guys at Speciality Pistols get some outstanding shooting results from their guns so I have been visiting their also.

[montana_charlie]

I would be happy to help too.
Then, you can take over the whole project. You seem to have experience with AcraGlas, and you have examples of the parts right there to look at.

Good luck, men...
CM

[Rickk]

Thanks guys. Sort of surprised not many have actually done an Encore. Will let you know how it turns out.

[rhbrink]

Good luck keep us posted.

[10 ga]

Bedding... J-B Industro Weld, get it at auto repair parts stores, it's the 2 big 5 oz. tubes. DEVCON is best! Get it at Midway, Natchez, Southern, Brownells etc....

[leadman]

McMillan uses Marine-Tex to bed their guns. I have purchased this at a marine shop here. It works very well and is easy to work with having bedded 3 or 4 guns with it. No capability to die it like with Acreglass though.