#boydsstocks

Since we know what needs to be fixed from the last installment we will move onto what right looks like. This is not a how too (I can do that later), just an explanation of what you should keep and what should be returned if you have someone ship you garbage work. As stated before, an ugly bedding job may be functional but when you are paying at least $225 for the service from a professional the the job should look like it was professionally executed. What I mean by this is that everything should be tightly finished, without blemishes/voids, and should be straight lines or semi-circles; there was no mention of squiggly lines, arcs, etc because there is no place for them in fit, finish, or function.

The picture below shows a McMillan stock bedded with Devcon 10110 Steel Putty ready for clean up. A couple of things to note: 1) Flat pillars were used to avoid point loading and the bedding completely filled the void up to where the pillar sits tangent to the action. 2) The skin of the bedding is a good, tight, smooth fit because the substrate was properly fit prior to bedding which allowed for even thickness all around. 3) The barrel pad ahead of the recoil lug is blocked off for a finished appearance. You can see lines that run perpendicular to the barrel channel. Those were made by placing a strip of Gorilla tape under the barrel, sticky side toward the barrel channel. A second pieces gets wrapped around the barrel to oppose the one in the channel. This is done so as to create a fracture line where the bedding material can be easily cut and trimmed to give a finished look instead of an uncontrolled puddle look. Uncontrolled puddles are one of my biggest peeves from people who charge for bedding jobs. It looks unfinished and reflects their professional pride.

This is a Boyd’s stock I reshaped and bedded with Pro-Bed 2000 using brown dye to match the camo paint job I intended to apply. 1)Working top to bottom you can see a barrel channel that mirrors the barrel contour and this stock has .060″ of clearance even though it is relatively slim for an SML: rifle with scope weighs under 10#. 2)When you get to the barrel pad you can see how the tape I mentioned above was employed to create a flow stop and a clean line where the bedding stopped. 3)The biggest difference in this bedding job is the use of a straight glass epoxy compared to a steel epoxy and the use of radiused pillars instead of flat pillars. If you have radiused pillars installed look at the two high sides and see if they are flattened at all. If they are, you have improperly machined pillars that point load and it could have been avoided if they had been test fit and lapped. 4) All show-lines and and clean up cuts are either straight or semi-circle. Nothing was left unfinished or trimmed in such a way as to look like I was drinking beer and running a Dremel (friends don’t let friends Dremel gun stocks because they make ugly happen really fast).

This is another McMillan but this one used radiused pillars like the one just above and Brownell’s ACRAGLAS GEL. If you want a smooth, shiny, glass like surface in your bedding you want ACRAGLAS GEL. Nothing finishes as well. The takeaways: 1) The barrel channel closely follows the barrel contour but I didn’t use a barrel pad because you don’t really need to. 2) There is no uncontrolled overflow and there are no voids. 3) All clean up cuts are neat and straight.

Last but not least, a final McMillan with Pro-Bed 2000 but I went back to flat pillars because they are easier to make. 1) Closely fit barrel channel that follows contour with .050″ float. 2) The barrel pad was controlled and trimmed for a neat finish. 3) Epoxy dyed to match paint job and absolutely no voids in the bedding. 4) All clean up cuts are straight and neat.

If you have a blind magazine or a single shot your front pillar can be a stand alone point of attachment instead of hanging an exterior escutcheon like some smiths glue on. It avoids the weird button look if you countersink a pillar instead and fit it flush with the contour of the stock belly.

When properly executed a bedding job looks like it belongs to the rifle. It closes up any gaps that the in-let suffered but is even because you removed the unevenness before you applied epoxy. It matches the color scheme and offers clean transitions. A well finished stock is a happy stock.