Thread: Glass bedding pros and cons

Hi, thinking about getting my tikka T3x synthetic stock bedded, is it worth the money to do it? Wt are the pros and cons? The rifle shoot fairly well for a factory rifle producing 0.6 moa groups at 100 yrds. But thought it might improve at longer ranges. Thanks Sam

I bedded my tikka t3 when converted to 6.5 prc, jb weld is the stuff that worked best.
I found that drilling small holes in the stock so the jb weld has something to hang onto when splitting after 5-6 hours of cure time.
Worked great and shoots very well.

Did myA7 so I don’t need to sight in again after disassembled for cleaning.the small set of devcon works well just don’t forget release agent.

Is it worth the money to do it ?
Are you happy with how it shoots, now ?
It will improve accuracy, but what level of accuracy are you aiming for ? ( sorry )
I’ve devcon bedded 4-5 of my rifles, but to be honest, they shot pretty well after trigger work, anyway.
You might be better developing a specific load, for the kind of hunting you intend to use it for.
It’s already close to 1/2 MOA, stock.

Tikkas aren’t easy to bed as the floating lug makes it more complicated. You need to temporarily epoxy the lug to the recess in the base of the action ensuring that only the front of the lug touches the action and that the top of the lug isn’t touching the underside of the action. When you break the job the lug should remain in the stock. Devcon and Nathan Foster’s kits are good.

It’s a learning curve and satisfying when it goes right, but it doesn’t always. If it goes wrong a new stock can be found for $100 or so, so the risk is minimal.

When doing the recoil lug on a tikka put 3 layers of masking tape on the top of the lug and about three layers on the back of the lug so you can “wedge” the lug in place in the action. This will give the clearance on the top of the lug and hold the front of the lug against the action. Then just bed it in.
But if your rifle is shooting 0.6 moa I doubt you’ll gain any accuracy by bedding.

I havnt had a single rifle bedded iv always had tikkas and sakos never found the need. Always shot gold as they were you can flog a dead horse but it wont jump . What do you personally want from it? Id spend my money behind the gun shooting animals might even become .5

Always worth bedding the only con is the slight waight increase from the glass which is very little
Ive never seen a rifle get worse from a bedding job only improvement
Ive seen already very accurate rifles not change much
But its never in my experience been detrimental to accuracy if done right

0.6 is pretty good accuracy, I would think bedding not needed.

Cheers and thanks for your input its a. 308 and wt I ment by longer range is out to 600yrds so not realy that far in some people's books, not that I would shoot a deer at that range. So in short I can't realy loose by getting it done which I was going to pay to have it done but seems I can do it my self. But does it need don't probly not, personal choice.

So you're wanting to improve your accuracy at 600yd but happy with 0.6 moa at 100yd ?

I don't claim to be an expert at long range but people talk about several causes of poorer grouping further out:
Using factory ammo
Bullet quality and damaged tips
Bullet instability (eg too heavy so not spinning fast enough) a long bullet is said to be less stable too.
Muzzle velocity variation due to powder charger weight (less likely) or varying neck tension.
Scope problem like using an uncalibrated ballistic reticle, inaccurate click values or cant.
Wind, slope and altitude not allowed for.

Bedding is usually done to improve zero retention from day to day.
If wandering zero is your problem, talk with someone about free floating it. I hear that tikkas have two bumps at the tip of the foreend that the barrel rests on.
Widening the barrel channel can reduce problems due to leaves and raindrops making contact between the barrel and stock.
You don't rebed or glass bed around the action itself to do those two jobs.

Originally Posted by stug

When doing the recoil lug on a tikka put 3 layers of masking tape on the top of the lug and about three layers on the back of the lug so you can “wedge” the lug in place in the action. This will give the clearance on the top of the lug and hold the front of the lug against the action......

...to clarify the above, making sure the masking tape is only the back part of the lug that goes in the slot of the action i.e. not on the back of the lug that is epoxied in the stock. A little superglue on the masking tape will hold the lug in the action slot to stop it moving before the bedding compound sets up.

Originally Posted by Doon

I bedded my tikka t3 when converted to 6.5 prc, jb weld is the stuff that worked best.
I found that drilling small holes in the stock so the jb weld has something to hang onto when splitting after 5-6 hours of cure time.
Worked great and shoots very well.

There's a lot of different epoxies that can be used as a bedding compound out there. Nearly all of them have some shrinkage over time. Belzona 1111 has zero shrinkage and is the best I've ever used and is like steel when set, but it's apparently about $350 a small tub. Black Marinetex is good too and easy to work with and is around $100 if you import it from the U.S.

Originally Posted by Samsamdjt

Hi, thinking about getting my tikka T3x synthetic stock bedded, is it worth the money to do it? Wt are the pros and cons? The rifle shoot fairly well for a factory rifle producing 0.6 moa groups at 100 yrds. But thought it might improve at longer ranges. Thanks Sam

I always do a bedding job - even did one on my 22LR. For me it just takes one of the variables out of the equation if I wonder whether it is me or the rifle that is not shooting straight. The other advantage is that when you get water and cleaning solvents etc in between the action and stock, you know everything is kept in place and wont expand or shrink on you.

The best stuff (in my opinion) to use is the bedding compound that Nathan Foster sells: https://www.ballisticstudies.com/sho...+Compound.html


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Here's one done in Marinetex the other day. I'd just pulled the action (a Barnard S) and about to start on some cleanup of fine details, not that there were many.



Marinetex is very hard and super stable with 0.01% shrinkage over a year. Many of the common ones can shrink by 3% which is NOT what you need