Bedding lesson

[wasa43]

I recently got a Weatherby Mark XXII for my wife, beautiful rifle, and just the weight that she wanted. However, groups were about 1.5” at 50 yards. Not good. I took a look, and the barrel was not free floated, contact near the tip of the forend, and the action was not very tight in the stock. So, glass bedding should solve this little problem. The rear guard screw is basically pillar bedded, a steel insert in the stock mating with the fitting on the action, so no need to bed the rear of the action. I’ll just bed the front of the action, and the first half inch of the barrel.

Since this is my wife’s rifle, and is SO pretty, I take extra care. I cover the stock rails with masking tape, letting it extend inside the barrel channel by about 1/4” and go ahead with the acraglass gel. Let it cure in the hot sun in the back yard for about 6 hours, carefully remove the action from the stock, and then use a utility knife to cut the acraglass and tape about 1/8” below inside of the stock rail, the tape and the acraglass come off perfectly, when I reassemble, there is no visual sign that the action has been glass bedded. The tape has prevented any of the overflow from staining the finish on the stock, good job.

Remove a bit of wood from the barrel channel, it’s now free floated, let the acraglass cure for 36 hours, and ready to head for the range in triumph.

There is only one problem, the groups are better, but still the BEST groups are about 1.25” at 50 yards, still no good.

So back to the shop, remove the action again, put it on the bench and scratch my head. Now I’m thinking about the crown, it’s just a bum tube, the scope has gone sour, lots of nasty things. I take a look at the screw hole for the front action screw. What’s that brown stuff at the bottom of the hole? Looks like acragrass! Now I get it, when I tightened the action screws, some of the acragrass was forced into the hole ahead of the screw. The front action screw is bottoming out on the acragrass, and not really snugging the action tightly into the stock. About 10 seconds of heat from a mini butane torch, and about 20 minutes of picking the acraglass out of the hole with a probe, and I’ve got bare metal at the bottom of the hole.

For good measure, this time I use the torque wrench to tighten the screws, 35 inch pounds front and rear. Back to the range, now it is starting to shoot real groups! After about 30 rounds, I still leave the torque wrench at 35 inch pounds, and tighten again. No movement of the rear screw, but the front screw rotates a tiny bit. Now, it is really shooting. Groups in the half inch range at 50. The last 3 shot group is about .3”, edge to edge at 50 yards, that will do.

So, my wife is happy, and all’s well with the world.

[CZforlife]

Nice post

[Trent]

Are you sure it was acraglass in the action screw hole? Maybe it was there all along?

Awesome that you got it resolved. My action/stock on my weatherby was the same way. Action was mounted in the stock slightly canted to one side. I was able to bed my action and get it straight and barrel free floated.

Hey... we like photos!

[silhouette13]

glad it worked out, i am suprised 2 of you had bad inlets, they dont exactly give them wetherby /64's away. i expect a little barrel contact in a 300 dollar gun, not so much for a premium 22. hum.

[Trent]

glad it worked out, i am suprised 2 of you had bad inlets, they dont exactly give them wetherby /64's away. i expect a little barrel contact in a 300 dollar gun, not so much for a premium 22. hum.

Not just two of us... it actually isn't an uncommon issue. Lots of fellas over on RFC have had the same issues. It's not surprising since Weatherby makes neither the action nor the stock. Mine was a super easy fix, and I would have ended up doing a skim bedding on it regardless so it wasn't a big deal to me.

I finally got tired of the grip angle on the Weatherby stock though and ordered a Pharr RT stock and cut an inlet for the 64 action. It is a HUGE improvement.

Crappy photo... don't mind the mess.