Tweet
Update on my Howa 20" HB
Last week I took out my Creedmoor, shot it well. Took out my 243 (MDT chassis) -- shot well. Both rifles with known good loads, 1" or less with a bit of POI movement around the horn on the bullseyes, but this is probably my doing not the rifles'. Well, took out the howa.... .... .... Well. Not so much. After a few "scatter patterns" on my 100 yd shooting with it, I found the action screws again had loosened up. Long story short, it was time to take the plunge and pillar bed this rifle.
I had ordered pillars and glass kit from brownell's along with some other pieces/parts (Amazon et al), but had to do a lot of thinking about this before finally resolving to do it. Two things bothered me about my bedding project, which may honestly not bother anyone else, but this was going to be my first job and sometimes a thing or two just bother me until I can figure out an approach. Such was the case here.
1) the pillars from Brownell's were your standard pillars, 9/16 OD, but the gap/hole thru the middle seemed just too big for my taste, I measured it to 7.5mm diameter. This for a 6mm (well, 5.86 really) action screw. Potentially lots of play here, for screws/pillars to somehow wind up mis-aligned in my amateur fingers.
2) Couple this with the thought of doing both pillars at once, and to me there was just too much "play" at play here. I figured that did not look good for me as a nub-pillar-bedder-guy.
So. How to address? Just ignore it, it will work out right, you'll see? Well, maybe so but I couldn't see that, with Murphy lurking in my neighborhood... I figured I had possibly one shot at this with this stock so can I eliminate these variables?
Here's what I did.
1) I said earlier that I ordered some other pieces/parts, turns out one set of them was simple aluminum 1/2" dia sleeves, these had a 1/4" hole (6.34mm by my measuring), where the threads measure 5.86mm... much better tolerances IMO.
2) Well you do need some slop/tolerances and if it's too tight when you're "done" then nothing fits... What if I do only 1 pillar at a time, using the other one to more or less anchor the action's position during the process.
O, I also bought a spray can of PAM, funny thing it works like a champ for this! Also works as a "cleaner" of your gloves when you get that inevitable bit of epoxy mix on them, use it to soften and wipe it off so you don't have to change gloves every 5-10 minutes...!
So this is what I decided. I did the front pillar first, since this one is the shorter of the two. The wood depth of the stock at that point measures 0.606" with my digital calipers, so I took a 7/8" pillar and cut it close with my dremel, then gradually sanded it down with 60 grit sandpaper to 0.606/0.605, which is flush (by feel) with the wood. I gradually opened up the hole with my new drill press, one bit size at a time, until at 1/2" the sleeve would fit but it was too tight... no choice but to use the 9/16 bit and open it up. At that point I dry-fit everything together and verified the assembled rifle would fit up and also cycle a complete set of 5 rounds (cycling on safe btw). Good thing on the dry fit to use the 9/16 b/c in order to get the sleeve and action etc to all fit up I had to position the sleeve to the "rear" of the 9/16 hole (I wedged in a small pc of toothpick in front of the sleeve to get it to stay during fit-up etc). Some slop is good! worked up the epoxy and set that one in, let it cure with rifle all put together. When I took it apart after setting up it also looked like some epoxy squeezed over to the recoil slot wood/area where the back of the lug fits up, this worked out fine, it should also help as the recoil lug now will have a solid mate-up place.
Dis-assembly/re-assembly and everything matches up fine, basic function checks Sat. On to the 2d (rear) sleeve.
The rear wood measures 1.103" depth with my calipers, so I took a 1.125" sleeve and just sanded it down by hand with a couple of pcs of 60 grit sandpaper. Take some down, measure, take some down. Kind of a slow process but each time I took off 0.002-0.003" of length... winding up at 1.102/1.103". For this hole, it's obviously longer than the front one, so I got up to 1/2" with the drill press. Now looking at the hole location, the border wood between it and the trigger assembly looked kind of thin, so I really didn't want to go to 9/16 bit -- seemed kinda risky... so I worked and waggled the 1/2" bit up/down, back and forth in the hole (using my hand drill), widening it slowly to the rear and a bit toward the bolt handle side of the stock. Finally had a good hole with room for epoxy and that would allow the whole assembly to fit up.
Deep breath, new nitrile gloves, PAM everything in sight, and work up another epoxy mix.
Now it's tomorrow and by golly! The thing looks pretty good considering the wing-nut at the controls!! I will test it out this week at the range.
Howa-bedding1.jpg
Howa-bedding2.jpg
Howa-bedding3.jpg
Last week I took out my Creedmoor, shot it well. Took out my 243 (MDT chassis) -- shot well. Both rifles with known good loads, 1" or less with a bit of POI movement around the horn on the bullseyes, but this is probably my doing not the rifles'. Well, took out the howa.... .... .... Well. Not so much. After a few "scatter patterns" on my 100 yd shooting with it, I found the action screws again had loosened up. Long story short, it was time to take the plunge and pillar bed this rifle.
I had ordered pillars and glass kit from brownell's along with some other pieces/parts (Amazon et al), but had to do a lot of thinking about this before finally resolving to do it. Two things bothered me about my bedding project, which may honestly not bother anyone else, but this was going to be my first job and sometimes a thing or two just bother me until I can figure out an approach. Such was the case here.
1) the pillars from Brownell's were your standard pillars, 9/16 OD, but the gap/hole thru the middle seemed just too big for my taste, I measured it to 7.5mm diameter. This for a 6mm (well, 5.86 really) action screw. Potentially lots of play here, for screws/pillars to somehow wind up mis-aligned in my amateur fingers.
2) Couple this with the thought of doing both pillars at once, and to me there was just too much "play" at play here. I figured that did not look good for me as a nub-pillar-bedder-guy.
So. How to address? Just ignore it, it will work out right, you'll see? Well, maybe so but I couldn't see that, with Murphy lurking in my neighborhood... I figured I had possibly one shot at this with this stock so can I eliminate these variables?
Here's what I did.
1) I said earlier that I ordered some other pieces/parts, turns out one set of them was simple aluminum 1/2" dia sleeves, these had a 1/4" hole (6.34mm by my measuring), where the threads measure 5.86mm... much better tolerances IMO.
2) Well you do need some slop/tolerances and if it's too tight when you're "done" then nothing fits... What if I do only 1 pillar at a time, using the other one to more or less anchor the action's position during the process.
O, I also bought a spray can of PAM, funny thing it works like a champ for this! Also works as a "cleaner" of your gloves when you get that inevitable bit of epoxy mix on them, use it to soften and wipe it off so you don't have to change gloves every 5-10 minutes...!
So this is what I decided. I did the front pillar first, since this one is the shorter of the two. The wood depth of the stock at that point measures 0.606" with my digital calipers, so I took a 7/8" pillar and cut it close with my dremel, then gradually sanded it down with 60 grit sandpaper to 0.606/0.605, which is flush (by feel) with the wood. I gradually opened up the hole with my new drill press, one bit size at a time, until at 1/2" the sleeve would fit but it was too tight... no choice but to use the 9/16 bit and open it up. At that point I dry-fit everything together and verified the assembled rifle would fit up and also cycle a complete set of 5 rounds (cycling on safe btw). Good thing on the dry fit to use the 9/16 b/c in order to get the sleeve and action etc to all fit up I had to position the sleeve to the "rear" of the 9/16 hole (I wedged in a small pc of toothpick in front of the sleeve to get it to stay during fit-up etc). Some slop is good! worked up the epoxy and set that one in, let it cure with rifle all put together. When I took it apart after setting up it also looked like some epoxy squeezed over to the recoil slot wood/area where the back of the lug fits up, this worked out fine, it should also help as the recoil lug now will have a solid mate-up place.
Dis-assembly/re-assembly and everything matches up fine, basic function checks Sat. On to the 2d (rear) sleeve.
The rear wood measures 1.103" depth with my calipers, so I took a 1.125" sleeve and just sanded it down by hand with a couple of pcs of 60 grit sandpaper. Take some down, measure, take some down. Kind of a slow process but each time I took off 0.002-0.003" of length... winding up at 1.102/1.103". For this hole, it's obviously longer than the front one, so I got up to 1/2" with the drill press. Now looking at the hole location, the border wood between it and the trigger assembly looked kind of thin, so I really didn't want to go to 9/16 bit -- seemed kinda risky... so I worked and waggled the 1/2" bit up/down, back and forth in the hole (using my hand drill), widening it slowly to the rear and a bit toward the bolt handle side of the stock. Finally had a good hole with room for epoxy and that would allow the whole assembly to fit up.
Deep breath, new nitrile gloves, PAM everything in sight, and work up another epoxy mix.
Now it's tomorrow and by golly! The thing looks pretty good considering the wing-nut at the controls!! I will test it out this week at the range.
Howa-bedding1.jpg
Howa-bedding2.jpg
Howa-bedding3.jpg
Comment