Rifle Bedding, Part 1: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
When I first became interested in rifles (seriously interested in rifles where it kept me awake at night) I was about twelve years old and long range hunting was just becoming an emerging interest in the shooting world. Some guys had been at it for a few years but it was finally making the news stands in outdoor publications. Precision rifles were a product of voodoo magic that only came together with precision metal work, pillar/glass bedding, custom hand-loads, and animal sacrifice. Only a couple of these witches could get it done with predictable success: David Miller, Kenny Jarrett, Speedy Gonzalez, etc. That legend persisted for five years or so, perpetuated by gun writers, until more and more small custom companies broke into that scene. It became more common to see the sub-MoA unicorn. Then the DIY guys figured out that you could actually make a lot of factory guns shoot really well with a little bit of work instead of forking over $3000 for a custom gun: trigger job, bedding job, proper scope mounting, and good ammo. Of all these fixes, the one that requires the most practice and attention to detail is bedding and happens to be one I often see botched by home hobbyist and hack gunsmiths. Bedding is a particular rifle passion of mine and one that infuriates me when I see it done poorly, especially when some poor fella paid a premium for the service (since the going rate starts at about $250 for a pillar/glass job). With some background on why we bed, what right looks like, and (more importantly) what wrong looks like you can avoid some of the pain myself and others have endured.
I had my first two guns bedded when I worked in gun shop during high school. The first was a Remington 700 BDL 7mm Rem Mag. The second was a Remington Custom Shop rifle called the Custom KS; imagine a “custom gun” that comes in an un-bedded McMillan stock (before they switched to Bell & Carlson when they were bought by Freedom Group). The Custom KS was bedded by our resident gunsmith who said he would float and bed the rifle and I let him since guys in the shop raved about his work. I only paid $90 for the service (employ discount) and got back a gun that was spot bedded at the recoil lug and tang. I remember pulling the stock off of the gun to clean it up and seeing un-dyed epoxy bedding that just ran where compression pushed it. It was ugly and looked unprofessional despite the fact that it was probably functional. The gun never shot well and it went down the road. Either way, that was the last bedding he did for me; he truly was a master of fitting recoil pads and I haven’t seen better pad jobs since but that didn’t help me at all. Luckily you only have to be a teenager once because you don’t always learn a lesson the first time.
At the recommendation of another co-worker I tried another guy (gun store owner, “gunsmith”, and competitive shooter) up the road in Ft Worth. The 700 BDL was to be pillar bedded but when I got it back it had one pillar up front, glassed (again with un-dyed epoxy) into a spot bed of the recoil lug. There was no pillar or glass bedding at the rear and the “smith” dismissed it as not necessary. He had no intention of fixing it and as an 18-year old kid I didn’t fight him on it since he had to know what he was doing. At that point I determined that the convenience of a local guy was not an advantage, it was a gamble at best. I like things to be done properly, just once. The first time.
I decided that mailing out work to reputable smiths was the only sure way to ensure I got back a good product. I also decided it was time to learn to do it myself and began to bed every stock I could get my hands on until I got it down pat. What I’ve learned is what to do and what not to do. I have also, by virtue of learning to bed well, learned never to accept second rate work from smiths because “reputable” (read recommended) smiths will sometimes turn out less than stellar work. Always consider the source because that can eliminate some heartburn in your life when somebody with low standards or little experience with quality guns vouches for some guy who likes to put guns together but actually does poor quality work. True professionals and craftsmen do not turn out junk. If you pay for bedding (much less an entire rifle) use someone who has a great reputation anywhere rifle people meet and talk guns because custom rifles are too expensive to take risks. Those names sound like: Long Rifles Inc, John Beanland, Eddie Fosnaugh, Nat Lambeth, Alex Sitman, Joel Russo, etc. It doesn’t have to be those exact guys (although each of them is phenomenal in regard to workmanship and customer service) but I’m not looking for a part-time-gun guy to charge me hundreds to thousands of dollars for slipshod work. Been there, done that, not going back for seconds.
Over the next couple installments we will discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly (not necessarily in that order) of stocks and bedding. We’ll show why a stock needs to be bedded, what good bedding looks like, and what you mail back for a refund or re-bed if you can stand the idea of letting them have another go at it. The goal is to leave everyone better informed or re-familiarized with what right looks like because recently I have had the displeasure of working with several guns that were very shoddily bedded by two “reputable” guys that screw guns together. That is a frustrating experience at best and a costly disaster at worst that no paying customer deserves.