# Glass bedding a Savage



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I have glass bedded Remingtons, Winchesters, even muzzleloaders, but Savage threw me for a loop. I was loosing some coyotes with 50 gr VMax so put a 1-8 twist on my AR15 and went to 75 gr bullets. No more problems, but with two 22-250's I didn't need the lightweight one which was a Savage. So I ordered a Krieger barrel, and a Bell and Carlson Medalist stock. I would have liked lighter, but stocks for short action Savages are limited.

The set up shot great, but the Bell and Carlson stock was a little blocky. On the site here I purchased a Boyd laminated stock. It is a very nice stock, but when I dropped the Savage in groups went from 1/4 inch to two inches and they were two inches upper left with the 140gr VLD and even further off with the 123 Amax. So I glass bedded it and it got even worse.

A couple of months later I was talking with my gunsmith while he was tapping and old Ruger 10/45 for me. He said "you do know you shouldn't bed the tang right. OOoooops. I had not thought about the screw arrangement in the Savage. The recoil lug screw is in the normal place, but the back screw is in front of the trigger guard. If the tang contacts and your tighten the back screw your warping your action.

So I got the trusty dremel and removed enough bedding to start over. I sanded everything away from the tang area. I drilled out the action screw and found a bronze cylinder at Max to pillar bed the recoil lug screw. I could have ordered one, but at this point I had run out of patience. So I put the bronze cylinder on a bolt, stuck it in my drill press, and used a file to cut ridges in the cylinder to hold epoxy. Then I covered it with epoxy and pushed it into the stock. I wiped excess epoxy off, set the action in snugged the recoil lug bolt, and clamped the stock and action together with a rubber footed wood clamp.

When done that looked good so I put the magazine box in place, filled the areas I didn't want bedding with modelers clay, and used Minwax past wax for a release agent. I mixed up a generous amount of Devcon 10110 spread it in and clamped the action into the stock. It was a bit of a rush job, but yesterday I took it out and I can switch from the Boyd to the Bell and Carlson and the Boyd is only 1/4 inch left. Groups are about .25 which I am more than happy with. The Bell and Carlson shoots about the same size group. The only odd thing with the Boyd was elevation was absolutely perfect the first shot was 1/4 inch right and the last was perfect. So I have a perfect group up and down, but 1/4 inch left and right. That was only one group though and may have been just a coincidence. I hope the good group wasn't a fluke, but it shouldn't be since that's normal with the Bell and Carlson.

Ok, the job was fast and not pretty, but I'll throw in a couple of pictures anyway. Oh, one other thing: I used two layers of duck tape placed under the tang as the bedding set.

Pillar bedded recoil bolt









Action bedded from front of trigger guard to back of recoil lug


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## xdeano (Jan 14, 2005)

Devcon 10110 is some excellent stuff to work with.
Xdeano


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I don't know why the lack of a tang screw didn't register with me. Once I free floated it just like the barrel the Boyd's stock is as accurate as the Medalist. The medalist is nice off the bench, but a little blocky to carry all day for coyote. The best part is with the Boyd's stock I only hit 1/4 inch left of the impact with the Medalist. Not much correction to be made.

I was out doing a little shooting with the 308 and the 6.5 Creedmoor yesterday. I had a target set at 700 yards. The wind was quartering from my back and to the left. The 308 was shooting 168 gr SMK at 2720 and the 6.5 was shooting the 140 Berger VLD at 2725. Very close, but the wind drift was sure different. Winds in North Dakota are not that steady and although the 308 in Remington 700P groups very good it was hard to keep it on an 8 inch target at 700 yards. As a matter of fact ten rounds only give me tw0 hits. As a matter of fact the first three rounds were so far right they were hitting on hard dirt that was giving me no indication of impact. With the 6.5 Creedmoor ten rounds give me seven hits, with the first round about six inches right.


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