The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I have found myself over the years when I get a Centre fire rifle bedding the action round the recoil lug. I personally think that this does improve the accuracy but interested in the general view. Yes, mounting screws are tight but belt and braces for me.

The purpose of bedding is to get a higher contact area between the stock and the action. If you want repeatable contact area you will need to add pillars to the bedding job. This would allow you to remove the stock from the rifle (for cleaning etc) and reassemble the stock using the same torque values on the action screws. If you don't pillar bed, you will compress the stock against the action despite using the same torque (eg expanding/compressing wood stock).

This is why I like chassis systems, like the MDT Tac21 on my Remington. V-shaped bedding means I get good, consistent contact when inserting the round action and I can torque the action screws down to the same value each time. Fire a few shots, re-torque the screws and you're good to go.

I have a CZ 452 and I refinished the stock & opened up the front end to float the barrel. Because there was solid contact with the first four inches or so before hand, I don't think I've opened it quite enough as my groups open up slightly if I exert too much pressure on the front when using a bipod (eg the stock is flexing and touching the barrel). Off bags it's ok. It could probably benefit with a bedding job around the action and recoil lug.

Have you any experience with chassis systems or are you mostly experienced with traditional stocks with custom bedding jobs?

Mosin rifles, particularly sniper variants, benefit from having the action shimmed.This involves adding shims under the barrel shank, under the rear tang and shimming the magazine body/trigger guard and also shimming behind the recoil lug recess.....Although I have shimmed inside the lug recess itself in order to remove any movement.

They tend not to like a fully floated barrel so a wrap of oiled canvas is added, around 2" long and usually somewhere between the end of the stock forend and the front barrel band.It can be trial and error to find the "sweet spot" for the wrap as it acts as a harmonic damper and adds a fixed pressure point.The barrel channel in the stock sometimes needs to be relieved so a piece of paper or a 100 Ruble note will slide unhindered between the barrel and the inside of the barrel channel with the action screws tightened.It also helps if the same piece of paper can be run around the gap between the stock and the barrel shank and receiver and that there is clearance between the sides of the rear tang and the cut out at the rear of the stock.

Russian snipers and the Finns often went to great lengths to shim their actions and my 1944 Izhevsk PU sniper still has its original period shims and wrap in place and will still shoot tiny little groups if I do my part.

I have also shimmed and wrapped three or four standard infantry Mosins using homemade shims made from old tobacco tins etc and all have seen a great reduction in group size......WelshShooter may remember me dropping the 900m target on F Range at Sennybridge on the third shot using a 1939 Izhevsk 91/30 with iron sights and Russian milsurp ammo.

I have found some wonderful things that have been used for bedding SMLE's, everything from an old invoice to business cards as well as rubberised cork.

Bedding - it is always worth bedding around the recoil lug, I add a single thickness of electrical tape the front of the lug before hand. After that I suggest pillar bedding and ideally done at the same time. Full length bedding is time consuming and if someone is paying for it I am not convinced it is worth the effort as a single item. Better to include it as part of an accurised package.

Ovenpaa wrote:I have found some wonderful things that have been used for bedding SMLE's, everything from an old invoice to business cards as well as rubberised cork.

Bedding - it is always worth bedding around the recoil lug, I add a single thickness of electrical tape the front of the lug before hand. After that I suggest pillar bedding and ideally done at the same time. Full length bedding is time consuming and if someone is paying for it I am not convinced it is worth the effort as a single item. Better to include it as part of an accurised package.

Cork was sometimes used by the Russians too, although the shims in my PU look like they are made from 54r "spam can" steel.I would imagine that shims were used as they were relatively easy to make in the field using whatever thin metal was available, I have even seen some original wartime ones made from thin aircraft aluminium!.

WelshShooter wrote:The purpose of bedding is to get a higher contact area between the stock and the action. If you want repeatable contact area you will need to add pillars to the bedding job. This would allow you to remove the stock from the rifle (for cleaning etc) and reassemble the stock using the same torque values on the action screws. If you don't pillar bed, you will compress the stock against the action despite using the same torque (eg expanding/compressing wood stock).

This is why I like chassis systems, like the MDT Tac21 on my Remington. V-shaped bedding means I get good, consistent contact when inserting the round action and I can torque the action screws down to the same value each time. Fire a few shots, re-torque the screws and you're good to go.

I have a CZ 452 and I refinished the stock & opened up the front end to float the barrel. Because there was solid contact with the first four inches or so before hand, I don't think I've opened it quite enough as my groups open up slightly if I exert too much pressure on the front when using a bipod (eg the stock is flexing and touching the barrel). Off bags it's ok. It could probably benefit with a bedding job around the action and recoil lug.

Have you any experience with chassis systems or are you mostly experienced with traditional stocks with custom bedding jobs?

Many thanks for ''tis bit of info. I will need to have a look at pillar bedding and most of my experiences is with traditional stocks. However, I did build a target Stock for a Musgrave 308 I had and it worked very well.