So years ago I tried glass bedding and old M14 stock. It was a Birch stock, decent fit but a rather small stock, the bedding came out poorly, I really was working blind so to speak and was never that thrilled about trying it again. It may have improved accuracy by a bit but hardly worth the effort.
I started collecting a few stocks over the years and when Phil recommended Tony's YouTube series on epoxy bedding M1A's, I got inspired. It's an excellent how-to series of 4 videos, he takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to explain the process and the rationale behind bedding. It just clicked with me and got me going. I had a Big Red Sykes stock I was not using and it looked to be an ideal candidate. Those are beefy stocks to begin with and make a great candidate for this process. I decided to box-in the selector cut-out area for more bedding surfaces and it turned out to be a good idea.
The choices for materials are important. He recommends for your first bedding job that you use J-B weld and that makes sense. It is somewhat forgiving and has a decent working time. It can be a little runny so he uses Marine Tex and gets great results. I wanted to try another epoxy I've had good luck with, PC-7. It comes in 2 cans, is fairly thick so does not run but a bit too thick in some ways. You can warm it with a hair drier and reduce the viscosity nicely without making it set too quickly. It reproduces detail well and has a good hour of working time.
It seems to me that this is within the scope of most people who are used to working on projects, have access to a Dremel tool or some rotary tool like it, have a lot of patience and can get a clear picture in their mind of where they are going and the steps required to get there. There are risks, locking the receiver into the stock is the main one but it should not keep anyone from taking this project on. Tony recommends a really good spray-on mold release agent. It's ideal. However I've had good luck in the past with Johnson's paste wax and it worked very well
for me. I applied it to all surfaces that needed to not have epoxy adhere and had no problems. I applied 3 coats of the wax to the receiver and that was about right. Just my choice, I'm sure the material he recommends would be easier to apply but my goal was to see if I could do this project with items I could buy locally.
Wood removal for me was best accomplished using a Dremel and a wood-routing bit. I build guitars as a hobby so have done a lot of routing and had several bits around and they worked very well. They produce a sharp line and are easily controlled. They can be purchased at most hobby stores, even the big stores like Lowes and Home Depot carry them. A sharp chisel helped produce nicely squared off edges where that was required. I spent more time than necessary routing out the wood as it's all covered up with epoxy anyway but I'm a bit compulsive and that slows things down for me, not necessary though.
Take the time to remove the stock liner and modify it as he suggests, if you don't have the tool to remove the two screws that hold it in place
make one from an old screwdriver. It will do the job just fine. You need the epoxy around that metal liner for absorbing recoil shock and it needs to be thick enough there to do that.
You can't use too much tape. I used blue painters tape as Tony uses, it works well and on a stock with an existing finish it won't harm it. Keep some paper towels soaked in rubbing alcohol around to wipe off excess and not damage the finish, though with the right amount of tape you should really no be getting epoxy on the stock. If you don't have latex gloves around, get some. They are now available everywhere. My work requires that I wear gloves all day and I prefer Nitrile gloves, I kept several pairs on hand and changed them frequently. Also keep lots of long stem cotton tip applicators around, the short ones will work but those long ones really come in handy for removing material from tight places. I can't emphasize enough having plenty of gloves close by, you will need to change them frequently. Take your time and set things out within easy reach. You should not have to rush as most of the epoxies you have to chose from give you adequate working time.
You will need to set up a situation where you can produce the correct draw pressure on the front of the stock. Tony does this by using an aluminum block he fabricated that sits in the stock channel a few inches behind the front ferule. That works well. I chose to use a two-part silicone putty that I use at work for various medical procedures, it worked great in forming a stock rest that provided some pre-load for the rear of the receiver. That is essential as you want to build into your rifle the correct amount of draw pressure at the front ferrule when you are finished.
It greatly enhances accuracy. It's easy to accomplish, I will try to post some photos of how I did it, his method works great as well. The aluminum foil method may be the easiest and works too.
Here are some photos of the first steps, the barrel support and the wood routing with front clearance for the gas cylinder. A critical area for M14 function. Done correctly, this whole procedure will produce a very smooth action, you will notice how nicely the op rod slides, among many other advantages....
Clearance for the gas cylinder and making the barrel support for draw pressure:
I used a piece of plywood to estimate the amount of material to place in the barrel channel of the stock, this gives you good draw pressure as you need
to push the receiver down into place and clamp it there while the epoxy sets up. Don't skip this step, it's big part of the accuracy you are trying to achieve.
More in the next posts....
I started collecting a few stocks over the years and when Phil recommended Tony's YouTube series on epoxy bedding M1A's, I got inspired. It's an excellent how-to series of 4 videos, he takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to explain the process and the rationale behind bedding. It just clicked with me and got me going. I had a Big Red Sykes stock I was not using and it looked to be an ideal candidate. Those are beefy stocks to begin with and make a great candidate for this process. I decided to box-in the selector cut-out area for more bedding surfaces and it turned out to be a good idea.
The choices for materials are important. He recommends for your first bedding job that you use J-B weld and that makes sense. It is somewhat forgiving and has a decent working time. It can be a little runny so he uses Marine Tex and gets great results. I wanted to try another epoxy I've had good luck with, PC-7. It comes in 2 cans, is fairly thick so does not run but a bit too thick in some ways. You can warm it with a hair drier and reduce the viscosity nicely without making it set too quickly. It reproduces detail well and has a good hour of working time.
It seems to me that this is within the scope of most people who are used to working on projects, have access to a Dremel tool or some rotary tool like it, have a lot of patience and can get a clear picture in their mind of where they are going and the steps required to get there. There are risks, locking the receiver into the stock is the main one but it should not keep anyone from taking this project on. Tony recommends a really good spray-on mold release agent. It's ideal. However I've had good luck in the past with Johnson's paste wax and it worked very well
for me. I applied it to all surfaces that needed to not have epoxy adhere and had no problems. I applied 3 coats of the wax to the receiver and that was about right. Just my choice, I'm sure the material he recommends would be easier to apply but my goal was to see if I could do this project with items I could buy locally.
Wood removal for me was best accomplished using a Dremel and a wood-routing bit. I build guitars as a hobby so have done a lot of routing and had several bits around and they worked very well. They produce a sharp line and are easily controlled. They can be purchased at most hobby stores, even the big stores like Lowes and Home Depot carry them. A sharp chisel helped produce nicely squared off edges where that was required. I spent more time than necessary routing out the wood as it's all covered up with epoxy anyway but I'm a bit compulsive and that slows things down for me, not necessary though.
Take the time to remove the stock liner and modify it as he suggests, if you don't have the tool to remove the two screws that hold it in place
make one from an old screwdriver. It will do the job just fine. You need the epoxy around that metal liner for absorbing recoil shock and it needs to be thick enough there to do that.
You can't use too much tape. I used blue painters tape as Tony uses, it works well and on a stock with an existing finish it won't harm it. Keep some paper towels soaked in rubbing alcohol around to wipe off excess and not damage the finish, though with the right amount of tape you should really no be getting epoxy on the stock. If you don't have latex gloves around, get some. They are now available everywhere. My work requires that I wear gloves all day and I prefer Nitrile gloves, I kept several pairs on hand and changed them frequently. Also keep lots of long stem cotton tip applicators around, the short ones will work but those long ones really come in handy for removing material from tight places. I can't emphasize enough having plenty of gloves close by, you will need to change them frequently. Take your time and set things out within easy reach. You should not have to rush as most of the epoxies you have to chose from give you adequate working time.
You will need to set up a situation where you can produce the correct draw pressure on the front of the stock. Tony does this by using an aluminum block he fabricated that sits in the stock channel a few inches behind the front ferule. That works well. I chose to use a two-part silicone putty that I use at work for various medical procedures, it worked great in forming a stock rest that provided some pre-load for the rear of the receiver. That is essential as you want to build into your rifle the correct amount of draw pressure at the front ferrule when you are finished.
It greatly enhances accuracy. It's easy to accomplish, I will try to post some photos of how I did it, his method works great as well. The aluminum foil method may be the easiest and works too.
Here are some photos of the first steps, the barrel support and the wood routing with front clearance for the gas cylinder. A critical area for M14 function. Done correctly, this whole procedure will produce a very smooth action, you will notice how nicely the op rod slides, among many other advantages....
Clearance for the gas cylinder and making the barrel support for draw pressure:
I used a piece of plywood to estimate the amount of material to place in the barrel channel of the stock, this gives you good draw pressure as you need
to push the receiver down into place and clamp it there while the epoxy sets up. Don't skip this step, it's big part of the accuracy you are trying to achieve.
More in the next posts....
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