Pillar vs full receiver glass bedding

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LRRiflemanSNJ

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I have recently acquired a brace of Remington 700 ADL Varmint rifles (.223 & .308) that will soon reside in Boyd stocks and be bedded for use as short range and mid/long range F class target rifles.

My dilemma is, which produces a higher degree of accuracy once the "right" load for the rifle has been discovered, pillar bedding or full receiver bedding?

As an aside, the majority of my experience rests with service rifles (M1, M1A, & AR15), plus an AR platform long range rifle. My quest is to develop specialized handicapped friendly rifle built as bolt action match rifles..
 
Pillar bedding in its pure form is to suspend the action on top of two pillars, so that the rifle is not touching the stock anywhere else. In practice, it is done more like a fusion with glass bedding. The pillar is embedded in the stock with glass bedding compound, so that the action is sitting on top of the pillar while being embraced by glass bedding. The pillars are mostly metal sleeves around the action screws so that the screws can be torqued down without compressing the stock. It is an improved glass bedding if you will.

I like this "non-pure" form of pillar bedding. I have a 30 year old Rem 700 BDL in .30-06. After bedding, I managed to shoot 20 HXP surplus rounds through a 1" hole out 100yd, on bench rest. It is the best rifle I have had.

However, I didn't bed the whole action. Just the chamber, a few inches of barrel before that, behind the recoil lug, the rear tang, and the trigger guard. I also beded the whole barrel channel so that the barrel is free floating.

Hope this helps.
 
I have had the best luck using a combination of the 2 methods as in post # 2, Full glass bed with pillars through the stock.
 
There are several ways to do action bedding, with and without pillars, and or using larger barrel recoil brackets, etc, but I am a strong proponent in favor of floating barrels, and not ever bedding them. Barrels are finicky things when pressure is applied to them, so all it takes is a little heat to either the barrel or stock, even from the hot sun, to make wood (or plastic) and metal meet, thus slightly bending the barrel, then effecting the point of impact.

I like to see at least the thickness of two 3 x 5 paper cards pass between a barrel and the forearm of a stock. Bed the action for strength up to the barrel, open up the barrel channel, and its good for me.
 
Glass bedding is to get a consistent surface between the action and stock.

Pillar bedding is to allow repeatable torquing of the action screws.

One or the other isn't the answer, cause if you are looking for accuracy you will do both.

With a Rem700 free float the entire barrel, glass bed from the recoil lug on back. Add pillars when you do the glass bedding job, it doesn't take long and it is worth the extra work.

Jimro
 
A few more things to add

1. It is important the action screws not touching anything but the action and the trigger guard. They are not suppose to take any of the recoil force off the recoil lug. This could become tricky for pillar bedding as the hole in the pillar could be slightly bigger than the screw.

2. Always look out for possibility of mechanical lock. All the release agent in the christendom is not going to help if you let it happen. The rifle will be locked in the stock.

3. Choice of bedding compound. Most people use Acraglas. I happen to like pro bed 2000 from score high better. I bedded my BDL with that with their adjustable pillars. After that, I found the plastic metal putty from Devcon works even better.

-TL
 
Glass bedding is not always a good thing. ( ya ya ). Pillar bed and test. If it shoots good,leave well enough alone. Glass bedding ( while most of the time won't ) can hurt your accuracy or gain you nothing. Your rifle will tell you if it needs it. I have seen many rifles go south after glass bedding. Now if the job was not done good I do not know. Start with pillar bedding and test. If you feel it should shoot better than glass bed. To many other things come into play with accuracy to jump on the glass bed wagon right away. One of the biggest is action screw tension. Seems everyone cranks them down to 45 to 55 inch lbs and think they are good to go. Truth is 45 to 55 inch lbs is not a good tension for the majority of rifles. ( Factory setting ) Action screws are one of the biggest factors in accuracy that I have found. Take it one step at a time and don't jump on the glass bedding wagon till you are sure about it.
 
While pillar bedding was the solution to accuracy with the early synthetic stocks with way too soft of filler in the receiver area, conventional epoxy bedding receivers with flat bottom and sides produces equal accuracy as when they're pillar bedded. And they'll equal what any pillar bedded round action produces.

It's my opinion that the biggest advantage of pillar bedding is when round receivers are used. That helps them stay in place and not torque loose shooting heavy bullets out faster than 2500 fps. You don't have to rebed them after every few hundred rounds. Such is the issue folks learned decades ago shooting .308 Win. ammo from conventional epoxy bedding with Remington's round receivers. Only when they were glued in flat bottom and side sleeves then conventionally epoxy bedded without pillars did they stay put.

Worst accuracy problem with epoxy bedded receivers is the bottom of the barrel's chamber area is also bedded to touch the barrel. That's not a good thing to do; totally free float the barrel.
 
If you retorque the stock screws to the same amount at the start of a days shooting, conventional epoxy bedding will produce accuracy equal to any pillar bedding method.
 
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I agree completely, however, I do not want to have to retorque my action screws between every shot. Pillar bedding is cheap easy insurance that will not harm your rifle.
 
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