Pillar Bedding and Wood Stocks

[R.W.Dale]

If you’ve ever spent $10k on a guided hunt or stopped to consider such a venture, there should be an immediate understanding of why a hunting rifle is worth treating right.

in which case I would go straight to a stainless steel rifle with a quality synthetic stock. The pretty and less consistent wood would have to sit this one out.

 

[Varminterror]

in which case I would go straight to a stainless steel rifle with a quality synthetic stock. The pretty and less consistent wood would have to sit this one out.

Others of us prefer to simply make dead-simple improvements such the “pretty and inconsistent wood,” becomes “pretty and consistent.”

Blocking and bedding is cheap, easy, and fast. Folks have spent as much time reading and responding in this thread as the job takes to complete. No downside, proven potential upside, what’s there left to discuss?

 

[JFrank]

No need to be argumentative, the Original Poster didn't mention anything about a guided hunt valued at 10 thousand dollars and no one is miss treating anything.
Perhaps calm down and tells us about your last 10k hunt and how you pillar and bedded your rifle and what improvement s you recorded while developing your quality load in preparation for this event.

Did you build the load prior to the stock altering ?
Did you just get the dremel out right away?
Also did altering the stock void the warranty ?

Just curious how you went about the deed.

Don't misunderstand me as I have rifles that are P&B , some without and one with only pillars ( actually two) all shoot good.

 

[Skylerbone]

No need to be argumentative, the Original Poster didn't mention anything about a guided hunt valued at 10 thousand dollars and no one is miss treating anything.
Perhaps calm down and tells us about your last 10k hunt and how you pillar and bedded your rifle and what improvement s you recorded while developing your quality load in preparation for this event.

Did you build the load prior to the stock altering ?
Did you just get the dremel out right away?
Also did altering the stock void the warranty ?

Just curious how you went about the deed.

Don't misunderstand me as I have rifles that are P&B , some without and one with only pillars ( actually two) all shoot good.

It’s a long drawn out story with plenty of boring detail but started with a 700BDL in stock form that got re-stocked with an HS Precision (yeah I didn’t know any better), a back up Model 70 in composite stock, a trip to Cabelas Outfitters, and an Alberta moose. 2 if you count my dad’s, he also shelled out $10k.

I worked up a several loads and wound up with 60gr of RL22 shooting a 180gr Nosler Partition at 3.315” which, as it turned out was even more accurate in my back up. That rifle’s stock didn’t survive the trip so I replaced it with a Richards, bedded and pillared it, and it’s back in form now.


2019 targets after swapping Hawke scope for Leupold.


Model 70 back up rifle purchased for trip.


Model 700 received for 18th birthday gift.


Dad with his moose.


Dad with my moose.

 

[JFrank]

So as a synopsis was the load the major improvement or the bedding ?
Nice Moose btw.

 

[Skylerbone]

So as a synopsis was the load the major improvement or the bedding ?
Nice Moose btw.

The load of coarse, but the bedding ensured the rifle could get out of the way. Same with pillars. Much as a house foundation does nothing for curb appeal it’s an integral part of a sound home. Who wouldn’t want to start with a solid base rather than wait till their house shifts, and assuredly it will.

 

[Boomholzer]

How important is pillar bedding to you when you consider purchasing a rifle with a wood or laminate stock? A few months ago i was close to buying an x bolt 30-06 with a gorgeous and fitting wood stock but when i learned that neither that nor the tikka wood stocks had pillars

I have 2 Tikkas and a X-bolt. The Tikkas are both "hunters" (American walnut I think) one is a SS fluted 270win and the other is a 7mm-08.
They are both pillar bedded. I don't have a statistical analysis of the results down range and this was years ago. The 270 responded far more [positively] then the 7mm-08 in improved accuracy and precision. I do reload for them. I have more time into reloading 7mm-08 vs 270win just based on volume. Out of the box I would have considered that 270 a 2moa rifle at best.

My developed opinion (and not a popular one) is that Tikkas are largely overrated for the price. Plastic, low-cost design, butter soft stock, I don't like the recoil lug system, mag system, the floor plate is garbage, and I have never been wow'ed with the performance. Tikkas are however easy to bed. I temporarily bonded the recoil "chicklet" to the receiver slot and then bedded it much like a Rem700. The bedding around the inletted recoil lug slot ultimately captures the chicklet. In both of these cases, I bedded about a 1.5" forward. One can purchase a bedding kit with pre-sized pillars and a titanium chicklet to replace the T3's aluminum one (the T3x is Ti) and you can get aftermarket BM and even the bolt cap.

The x-bolt isn't bedded. I never thought I it needed it. That is where I would have steered the OP. I really like that rifle but to each their own. The necessity of bedding is on the user/operator. when done correctly, it's not going to hurt. My brand preference wouldn't be exclusive to whether or not the rifle had pillars.