Discovered my howa action screws had loosened up

[Frontier Gear]

So I measured the wood thickness where the action screws go through, front 0.610" and rear, 1.198", so that's what I would shorten the pillars to.

No. I find that my pillars end up shorter than the wood measurement. The wood compresses when you torque the screws down. If you make your pillars the same as the wood, you will probably have feeding issues on the last round.

Start by cutting your pillars a little longer than the wood measurement and try cycling a full mag (dummy rounds). Keep shaving off a little of the pillar length until everything works perfectly. I do all of this outside of the stock. It should feed an entire mag perfectly every time, even the last round. Then I drill the stock for the pillars and test fit it all. After epoxying the pillars in place I use a dremel to remove the wood that is sticking up past the pillars. Finally, I epoxy bed the action.

Also, a question on the pillars.
Brownell's has them 9/16", and they have a 3.0"/7.5mm diameter hole in them. The screws I measured diameters (6mm nominal) and they measure 5.94mm at the widest spot. Will that extra ~1.5mm gap between hole width and bolt diameter be an issue?

Probably not, if you epoxy bed the action. The epoxy bedding should put the barreled action into the same location of the stock every time. There is a quite a bit of play in the factory pillars as well. Personally, I would just go down to the local hardware store and purchase some long aluminum or steel 6mm spacers for about $1 each. Then you can cut them down to size.

[A5BLASTER]

Is that kit for the howa mini? Only ones I see are for Remington 700.
Also, the height of the pillars, I think I can do that ok. but each pillar's hole down thru the center is about 1.5mm larger than the bolt itself. That bit of slop is what I wonder about, will the bolts wiggle back and forth some inside the pillars b/c of that gap...

No it's just listed as howa, it's on their website, I had called them and asked and they said the piller's will work with the mini since all howa piller's are the same size.

I haven't installed it yet, figured I would wait till after deer season closes.

[grayfox]

FG... Good to know, I was wondering about whether to use a slightly shorter length. I just ordered the pillars and some acra glass gel kit from Brownells, the drill press will come in about a week.

From what I gather the action screws are set at 90 deg angle to the barrel bore, and presumably also to the action bottom (the mini has a flat bottom, if my aged brain remembers from this afternoon pulling it apart!!) ...

How much epoxy do you use to bed the action? And do you need to scoop out some down into the stock so the epoxy beds down into and fills back up that void?

[Frontier Gear]

It doesn't take much epoxy. I didn't bed under the barrel, just the action screws (which with the Howa is also the recoil lug area).

Personally, I did the epoxy in two stages. Here is how I did it on both of my Howas.

Once everything is drilled and cut to size, I roughed up the outside of the pillars with 100 grit sandpaper to give the epoxy something to hold on to. Then I cleaned them with alcohol (acetone works as well or even better). Coat the bottom metal, action screws and the barreled action with a release agent. Mix up the epoxy and coat the outside of the pillars with epoxy. Use a toothpick to smear a layer of epoxy into the wooden holes as well. Insert the pillars into the holes with a twisting motion so that the epoxy is completely filling the area between the pillar and the wood hole. Remove any excess epoxy that is oozing out onto the wood or inside of the pillar inner diameter. Assemble the barreled action into the stock along with the bottom metal and torque down the action screws. Let it cure.

Once it is cured remove the barreled action and the bottom metal. Then I used a Dremel tool to clean up the surfaces around the pillars. I removed any wood and epoxy that was protruding higher than the pillars. Do this on the top of the stock where the barreled action mates with the pillars and on the bottom of the stock where the bottom metal mates with the pillars. At this point, be sure to put it all back together and test fit everything. Use your dummy rounds to verify the feeding of the ammo. Cycle a full mag through the action. Do that like 10 times. Check the barrel alignment in the stock and perform your dollar bill test.

Once all that looks good put a piece of tape on the front side of your recoil lug. Then go ahead and recoat the barreled action, action screws and bottom metal with release agent. This is where it gets messy. Mix up your second batch of epoxy and smear it around the pillars on the top and the bottom (action side and bottom metal side). Don't use too much as a little tends to go a long ways and the extra will end up oozing out of the stock onto the sides of your barrel and action. Be sure to get enough epoxy into the recoil lug area though. Torque down the screws and let it set.

You will probably have some clean up to do once you get it all apart. Clean up the release agent and remove that little piece of tape. I use a needle file for removing the epoxy "flashing".

[grayfox]

Did I read on here somewhere that the hornady 1-shot is a good release agent? or what other recommendations.

[FW Conch]

^ Kiwi neutral shoe polish ^

[Frontier Gear]

Vaseline works if you get the right thickness of coat on it (not too thick and not too thin). Too much and it doesn't bed correctly. Too little and you will have a hard time getting it all apart. Of course you just use Brownells release agent.

https://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/stock-work-finishing/stock-bedding-accessories/mold-releases/acraglas-release-agent-prod41622.aspx

[Taz575]

I used 2 or 3 coats of Hornady 1 Shot when I used JB KwikWeld to bed my Howa mini.

[grayfox]

The Brownell's kit I ordered happens to come with some release agent in it. I've seen the JB welds at wally world. I've got 1-shot and can get any other stuff I might need. May test out the 1-shot w/ some epoxy before trying to use it, though.

Thanks guys for all the help! esp FG.

[FW Conch]

^ JB Weld works great...don't get the Quick Set ^

[grayfox]

Yeah, actually wondered about that.... thanks!

[Dinny]

I found this today while I was farting around on the 'puter.

http://erniethegunsmith.com/catalog/c41_p1.html

Thanks, Dinny

[FW Conch]

Thanks Denny, I learned some stuff from that site