Gunsmithing Glass bed like an alum chassis?

[Frank]

Ok, lots of chassis's out there these days. Big selling point is can swap actions in and out and with out rebedding, and no rebedding then changing out a barrel. I'm old school, and just plain old, 61 if it matters. Used to be that wisdom said needed to glass a 2 in pad under the barrel just in front of the action lug supposedly to help support the weight of the barrel. So whats to keep you from just bedding the action and lug without the 2in pad, like a chassis. Then you could at least change out barrels with out rebedding. Probably could swap out actions but may not be a perfect fit. Am I missing something here? Is rebedding really needed if you just swap in a new barrel? I assume the barrel channel would be big enough to clear the new barrel.

 

[Wheres-Waldo]

Re: Glass bed like an alum chassis?

If you have JUST the action block in your stock (no bedding) then you can swap like-profiled actions/barrels to your hearts content.

Introduce bedding and you change the story. If you DONT have a pad in front of your lug, then by all means, switch barrels. If you DO have a pad in front of your lug, I'd advise against switching barrels without rebedding unless care was taken to ensure that the same O.D. was maintained at the shank of each barrel.

If you have a tapered profile, the random amount a smith takes off before counterbore, chambering...yadda yadda... all of a sudden becomes important.

Just go without bedding in front of the lug if you want to swap out barrels... easy enough.

 

[MTyotehunter]

Re: Glass bed like an alum chassis?

unless its a really heavy barel I would let the berrel float full length

 

[sawman556]

Re: Glass bed like an alum chassis?

My barreled action shoots in .375 MOA range with a KRG Whiskey 3. I just sold my KRG and picked up a MCS T5A w/ mini-chassis. After the switch, I'll be damned, it shoots the same. I'm not sure I see the logic behind bedding with a chassis. If you are going to bed it you might as well bed the whole thing.