A nice tip to eliminate the risk of stressing the reciver, esp with heavy barrels. Before making the primary bedding, you create a support bedding in the barrel channel. Mask of two areas in the channel with tape (and release agent on barrel!) then put epoxy there, install barrel with stock screws and metals just like from factory. Let it harden. When you later do the full bedding job you can fix the system by the barrel instead of the action - you can still use the stock screws rear and its recommended to get correct rotational and longitudal centering. when the primary bedding is done, remove the supports. If the system is heavy and you DONT use the support, you will just bend the reciver from the barrel and tang/rear screw working against the front action screw.
I have had great success with modeling clay with graphite on it in the forend. Same principle, I completely agree you have to be careful about inducing stress in that rear tang. Thanks for the tip.
Your pillars that come with your bottom metal or the pillar spec by manufacturer set your correct height for proper function of the action. If your ejection port or tang height is low/high etc then you must modify the stock.
Great idea to put the q-tip on the pick! A tip for you is to come back a few hours later (time will vary depending on product used, humidity etc.) and break the action screws and retighten. This way the epoxy will be set enough to be stable, but is not fully hardened yet, and if you got epoxy on the threads and not enought relief agent, you won't epoxy the bolts into the action.
I guess I’m not tracking, I don’t bed forends under the barrel. Now on some synthetic stocks you do need to stiffen them up but you aren’t bedding the barrel. I think you might be talking about the over flow in front of the recoil lug? Most of the time I clean that up in the mill and only the action is left bedded. Sometimes I do leave the over flow depending on the application and have never seen an issue, but that’s rare.
