Rifle bedding question?

[vetter3006]

What is the difference of pillar and glass bedding on a rifle?

[Tomcat088]

There are several types of bedding, you mention just 2 here, and these 2 can actually both be done to a rifle. There are 2 or 3 screws that hold an action to the stock (typically), and many times in stocks they are just drilled through the wood or the fiberglass, and the action is screwed down. In pillar bedding, "pillars" are installed where the screw holes go. Basically, they drill out the screw holes bigger, and place a metal sleeve inside, and use a little bit of glass bedding compound to hold them in. It's a way to "float" the action off of the wood, and the metal is a little bit more stable than the wood.

Glass bedding is usually done in conjunction with pillar bedding, and sometimes donw without pillar bedding. When you glass bed something, you are basically surrounding the action with a compound that is made of epoxy and ground up glass. The begging compound will go around the action, surround the recoil lug, and usually will go just under the first inch or so of the barrel where the chamber area is. When an action is glass bedded, it will only sit in the stock one way, and so it's very easy to remove the action and clean or work on it, and put it back in place; it makes it quite repeatable. This helps keep the point of impact from shifting off of the zero, if you remove it from the stock, and can help with the harmonics of the rifle. Usually the goal out of both of these jobs is to keep the barrel free floated as well.

Here's a page on 6BR that show pillars and pillar bedding, and then he commences to glass bed the action. Usually when people have a custom rifle built, or have to have a rifle built, they will do both, pillar and glass bed it. There are many high end custom stocks that do not come pillar bedded and require it to be done if desired. McMillan is one of these stock makers, their stocks do NOT come pillar bedded, but they will do it for you for some extra charge, or you can have your gunsmith do it. There are other companies that offer "bedding blocks," which is an aluminum block that supports the bottom of the action, and loosely supports the action. It's a bit more stable than just pillar bedding, but people still like to glass bed the bedding block, so that the action can be placed back in the stock in a repeatable fashion, and is fully supported. Hope this helps. http://www.6mmbr.com/pillarbedding.html

[vetter3006]

Tomcat088, thanks for the great detail in your explaination of bedding it helped me out alot, thanks for the link also.

[Tomcat088]

You're welcome buddy, glad that I could help. There's a bit more to it, but that's just kind of the basics and the idea behind those types of bedding.