Hot glue or bog in forend will stiffen it enough on its own bud. Your lead shot in it will give you the weight,just be sure to tootoo with balance point before glueing it in place.

The problem with the for-end flexing is a common problem with this stock. The rifle and action are top grade, so to keep the price down they have used what appears to be a cheap and nasty, injection moulded, plastic stock. I thought about having a carbon stock made…too expensive…so I then thought about something like a Boyd Laminated stock…again, too expensive (around AUD$500). Next obvious step was add some weight and do a bedding job.

There is a NZ company that produces a bedding epoxy, Matchgrade Bedding,

Matchgrade Bedding

that is supposed to be the ducks guts of bedding products. There is now an Aussie agent and the price is very reasonable, but after watching the four videos they have on their website about bedding with their product, I am not sure it’s a job I can tackle with confidence. First up I will look at a simple bedding job to strengthen around the recoil block and hopefully reduce flexing in that area, and very basically do some bedding around the end of the action.
If it comes to paying someone like a Gunshop to bed the action, I’ll have to think long and hard about that because of the cost involved.

Whichever way, I should be able to do something that will strengthen the stock and overcome these flexing dramas…I hope.

Mate.Nathans stuff is top notch. I've done two rifles using it. It's easy. Follow the steps. Nathan n Steph are great people and given a heap of time to shooting community. Terminal ballistic research is Thier home website...bit quiet these days but still great resource.the stock stabilise kit will be easier still than bedding.

And yes your stock identical to one on mates 7mm mag.

Elvis wrote:

Mate.Nathans stuff is top notch. I've done two rifles using it. It's easy. Follow the steps. Nathan n Steph are great people and given a heap of time to shooting community. Terminal ballistic research is Thier home website...bit quiet these days but still great resource.the stock stabilise kit will be easier still than bedding.

I emailed Nathan and received a reply overnight…a nice guy. His reply doesn’t I still a lot of confidence in me as far as my ability to do the job goes. It seems the “Tupperware” stock on these rifles is not the easiest to bed. PM inbound mate.

I’ve opted to go the cheaper route (it’s what I can afford right now - $40 instead of $150). I researched all of the metallised fillers, with Devcon being the best, followed by Marine Tech then JB Weld…but all are a tad expensive for my current pocket, so Turbo Metal Bog it is. The only other thing I may need to buy is some plasticine instead of using just masking tape.

I’ve started preparing the stock for bedding and I’ve added some extra weight (about 250 grams) to the forend. All I need to do now is reduce the height of where I want to bed by about 3mm to 5mm. I won’t kid myself…I’ve never bedded a rifle before, so I’m a little apprehensive that I’ll stuff up and it won’t work out properly, so it’s a case of “slowly slowly, catchee monkey”. That way I hopefully won’t make any mistakes…and I’ve watched about 20 or more YouTube videos on how to bed a stock, so it’s fingers crossed.

You will do fine bud....just put in some wee blocks to mark your desired height,that way when you push well greased action down into your bog,rifle will stop when it hits blocks n be at desired height.

Elvis wrote:

You will do fine bud....just put in some wee blocks to mark your desired height,that way when you push well greased action down into your bog,rifle will stop when it hits blocks n be at desired height.

Yes mate, good idea. I’ll use the recoil lug as the forward “block” to set the height. Once the recoil lug is firmly seated on its platform I should be at the correct height. The rear will be easy as I don’t plan on going crazy with hogging it out and bedding.

I’ll get there mate…just a matter of time, and taking it easy. I only wish I could afford Devcon or Nathan’s product.

Put another towards end of barrel channel...so action is flat/ parallel in stock.if you just use recoil lug in middle you could tip it one way or the other...

Well, so much for my first attempt at bedding. I mixed the epoxy according to the instructions and about 8 minutes later it was hard…I didn’t even finish putting it into the stock let alone placing the action into the stock. Luckily, the epoxy didn’t stick to the plastic (I’m now thinking it’s polypropylene), so I was able to hog it out. Okay, Plan B…reduce the catalyst by half to slow down the rate of curing. A thorough clean and degrease of the stock with BreakClean, a further application of silicone spray to the action (works a treat), then back into it. It sorta worked, it slowed the curing rate down by about 10 minutes and I was able to position the action into the stock and tie it down. Left it for 24 hours to do its hardening thing before trying to remove the action.

Who am I trying to kid (only myself it seems). I removed the bungy cord ties and tried to remove the action from the stock. Things seemed to be going ok…until I noticed that the epoxy didn’t stick to the stock…again!…and a large block of the epoxy was coming out with the recoil lug…BUGGER (or words to that effect)!!! Said block of epoxy came away from the action as it was intended, so my idea of spray silicon works as a release agent. Sooo, BUGGER and more words to that effect…I started hogging out the epoxy and noticed that whilst the curing process was slowed down, the hardening was also reduced significantly…to the point where it cut easily with a knife and I could pull it apart by hand. More BUGGER!!! Another problem I noted was the putty contained fibreglass fibres that made it difficult (near impossible) to apply and smooth out.

I cleaned everything up totally, then time for some research. It seems there isn’t much in the way of epoxy putty that will stick to some plastics. As an example, Research says “Resin does not bond to Teflon, polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon, or Mylar. It bonds poorly to polyvinyl chloride, acrylic and polycarbonate plastics.” I’m not certain what sort of plastic the stock is made from, but I’m thinking it is polypropylene…like Tupperware. Damn, I can’t take a trick. I don’t really want to spend $160 only to find it doesn’t work. The system that Elvis suggested from the guy in NZ would probably do the trick, but it’s a similar price to Devcon.

Plan C. I spoke to my shooting buddy and he told me to sit tight and he’ll be over to see me. On arrival he put a box in front of me and said “This stuff will do the trick, and it will stick to the plastic”. We had a good look at the stock and identified where I needed to increase the physical holding by drilling some holes and making some horizontal cuts (thank goodness for my Dremel) to allow the epoxy grip/hold points that would help hold the epoxy in place once it sets.
Sooo, today I clean the stock thoroughly…again …recheck all my new “hold points” and look at yet another attempt at bedding (the third).

I’m damned if I’m going to let this thing beat me. Either I can bed it, or I’ll look at buying a used Savage 10 (short action) wooden stock, assuming the price is within reach for me.

You are learning as you go mate.by time you finish you will be a gun

Well, I instituted Plan C, and fingers crossed, it has worked. I forgot to do a couple of things. Main one being not masking up the edges and outside of the stock (maybe a bit or work to do before I can remove the action methinks). Also, I forgot to put the bolts in the stock mounting holes, so I’ll no doubt have to clean them out as well. I was getting quite apprehensive about the entire process, hence my forgetting those two things.

However, a check this morning shows the bedding putty to be rock hard, so hopefully it was worked well…and yes Elvis, I’m learning as I go, but damn, it’s a steep learning curve. In the pic, the compound that is in the centre of the action is actually only a smear across the tape on top on the magazine (thank goodness), and the green blob is plasticine around the trigger group.

Damn…it took me 4 1/2 hours to get the action out of the stock. I applied plenty of release agent as per the instructions, but what I didn’t take into account was the notches around the barrel nut…they provided a very strong physical hold point. I managed to get the action out with much prying, pulling and even used a piece of wood and hammer as a driver (on the edge of the stock). It was this that finally broke the physical grip these notches had on the bedding compound by actually breaking the compound…you can see in the pic what I mean. Apart from getting the action out, the next hardest job was removing the excess compound from around the internal magazine. Thank goodness I have a Dremel and some Chinesium burrs…took time but they did the job.

After looking at the bedding compound in the stock, I can see that the recoil lug has a very neat and strong recess, and the bed at the bottom of the action and barrel is good. So whilst it isn’t pretty, I thinking that with a little cleaning up and “prettifying” it will do the job as intended and be functional. If not, I’ll have to remove the bedding compound and start from scratch…remembering to mask up the stock and top of the action this time and put the mounting bolts in their respective holes.

It was a steep learning curve, and as with all learning experiences, there were errors made, but hopefully all will be good in the end.

Thanks for sharing your adventure Vince. It's all useful information.

How does it shoot ?
I am thinking to do the same to some of mine as well