Rifle Bedding, Part 4: the UGLY.
Some bedding jobs are bad. It is totally possible to induce stress into a bedding job even if it looks clean. It is also possible to functionally bed a gun but your work looks like hot garbage. Having seen what right looks like it is time to share what should not be accepted as quality work from a gunsmith.
This is a stock bedded by Soltis Rifles on a full custom build that ran the customer about $5000 which as I have said before is entirely too much for a rifle built on a Remington 700 action. The stock has pillar bedding which is a little hard to see because the gunsmith painted over the bedding. I personally would not do that because you already have a 100% metal to epoxy fit. Why would you paint over it, changing that fit, and possibly allowing paint to build up in the recoil lug recess? Anyhow, it was functional and it shot fine but it looks awful.
To me the biggest issues in this picture are that when the magazine well was opened up to accept the Surgeon bottom metal it was obviously done with a Dremel or other rotary hand tool and that the bedding is sloppy. If you look at that mag well cut it is as wavy as can be where it was just hogged out.
You can also see a large void in the bedding beside the front pillar as well as a large portion on the top of the pillars. This occurred because there was not enough epoxy applied to completely fill out the footprint (other reasons for voids are improper mixing and application). What I find especially appalling about this is the guy had to have seen it when he pulled it apart and then painted the camouflage pattern over it. When you mess up work and you are charging a customer for it, it is your responsibility to fix it. That stock should have been re-bedded.
You can also see the barrel pad was just allowed to run into the channel, uncontrolled, and no attempt to clean it up was made. I’ve already beat that horse to death. It is still wrong.
I have already said it at least once but, Dremel makes ugly really fast. This is a prime example of what Dremel work looks like and that is unacceptable on a $5000 rifle; or any rifle unless you do it at home and you are cool with the way it looks. Good gunsmiths do not do inlet work with a Dremel. I cannot say for sure why that Dremel work was done, or when it was done, since everything else was painted over. Either way, it looks like hell.
The next bedding job is from Bad Bull who originally bedded the gun and the forearm bedding by Hankins Custom Rifles who converted the ignition system (you can see it on his YouTube channel if you look up “Bad Bull Muzzleloader Conversion”) for a friend of mine because the 2-piece plug system from Bad Bull is poorly designed and gas cuts quickly. That gas cutting destroys the plug, will eventually cut the barrel, and caused accuracy and precision to go out the window.This hybrid became known as the “Bad-Hakins” because of several years of repair time and additional cost between the two gun shops for a gun that he was never happy with due to poor workmanship.
What we have here is a prime example of voids and un-dammed epoxy. There also appears to be Dremel work (albeit better Dremel work than the example above). You can see the original bedding from Bad Bull underneath the action. What you can’t see is it does not run the full length of the action; it is a spot bed of the receiver ring and the tang. I cannot say that does not work but it is only half a bedding job. From what I could tell, it was functional but it looked like an amateur did it and if you look just ahead of the pillar you can see where it looks like a Dremel got away from someone. Hankins bedded the barrel channel and installed a ramrod when he did the barrel work. You can tell it is a dissimilar material (Devcon vs a straight epoxy) but given the whole situation I do not really care; you do not always have something to match or may not know what it is in order so that you can match it although you will have a good idea if you do a lot of bedding. A complete bedding job is the only way to guarantee true continuity.
What I would care about if I had paid for this service (from Bad Bull or Hankins) is the way that it looks which is a reflection of the effort and attention to detail put into the work. Compared to what we know is right we have a lot of deficiencies here. There was no measure in place front, middle, or rear to control flow of the Devcon. This necessarily means you have to mechanically clean it up (mill, scrapers, Dremel, etc) or just leave it as is which is what happened and looks unfinished. If you look at the barrel pad, just ahead of the recoil lug, you can see a long line of voids which resulted from improper application of epoxy.
In this detail shot you can very plainly see how the epoxy was allowed to run were compression pushed it and that no attempt to clean it up was made. Now, here is where you must look closely. Direct your attention to the hole for the ramrod, then look to the upper right and upper left of that hole. You can see two darker oval shapes. Those are vents in the forearm. Go back to the video and look at the stock. Vents, right? NOT ANY MORE! They are plugged with Devcon that you could actually see from the outside of the stock. That Devcon should never have been allowed to flow into those vents. Instead it was just slathered over the ramrod tube and the barreled action bolted in to form it. If there are any questions, that is not the right way to do that.
Here you can tell that some Devcon was cut away, likely to allow the ramrod to pass freely into the tube that was bedded into the tip but I don’t know for sure. You can tell though just like the other views that no attempt was made to control the flow of Devcon nor was an attempt made to ensure it was even or finished. It just has a wavy look like the edges of a smashed Peanut Butter and Jelly samich.
The right way to have fixed this forearm (or any forearm you want to fill) would have been to completely fill it so that it matched from lug to tip. If you do this you are going to add weight to the forearm. Acraglas will add less weight than an epoxy with metal in it like Devcon I only use Devcon where compression is high since that is its greatest advantage over something like Acraglas. The way you keep weight down with any fill job though is to add Hi-Bond Q-Cell micro-spheres to the epoxy mix to reduce the density. Then you come back in and fix your inlet just like you would on a brand new stock. In the case of a barrel channel you wrap the barrel in tape to give you the float you want then when you pop the barreled action loose you come back in clean up the channel. By the time you come back in with emery cloth to clean up the inlet very little of the epoxy is left and it is a mirror image of the barrel contour. That is to say, it looks well finished.
This is not traditional bedding as discussed above but there is a point I am going to make about pride, customer service, and workmanship. This is a Manners T4A with Mini-Chassis.
When I assembled the barreled action and stock I could tell something did not fit right because screws did not line up and the ejection port was not flush with the show-line. I called Manners and got a call back from the owner, Tom. We narrowed it down to the fact that he didn’t have an inlet program for the Timney Calvin Elite trigger I used and I could see where the pivot pin was resting on the bottom metal; new stuff comes out all the time and it’s impossible to keep up with all of it. I had two of these in hand that I was using to build match rifles and Tom offered to send me shipping labels and get them fixed. He also asked if there were any other issues. I told him I had to fix one barrel channel because it was the wrong profile but that I would take care of it because I bought it from his “Ready to Ship” inventory and knew the channel would need modification. He said I should not have to fix it and asked for some dimensions. A week later I had them back, properly inlet using a mill. When I posted a positive review for Tom on a muzzle-loading forum somebody said I could have just fixed it with a Dremel and that is how he would have handled it instead of setting up a mill for a 30-second job. That is the difference in craftsmanship and service: Tom’s customer service for two stocks bought for $1800 was impeccable, the other suggestion was not and mirrors the work posted above. That $80 Tom spent on shipping has turned into six more stock purchases (about $6000) from myself and friends. That is a good return on investment all for being a good dude.