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David and Goliath

David and Goliath

I recently went back and read the old bible story about David and Goliath again. I guess I have read it more than a few times through the years but I don’t think I ever took a “critical” look at all the elements of the story. I was amazed at how much of the story is still relevant advice for us today. Even though I’m hesitant to recommend killing as the “go to” solution for solving problems it seems obvious that there are times when it just works. In spite of that fact the importance of this story doesn’t hinge on the fact that David killed him but rather on the techniques David used to overcome his opponent. The techniques are timeless and should be taught at all levels.

I listened to a sermon a while back and the preacher seemed to miss the point. He labored and labored over how a young boy went into battle with a giant and used a pebble and God to kill him and win the battle. He talked about how if you have God on your side you meager skills will be enough because he will magnify your efforts. While I don’t disagree that God can certainly magnify anything he wishes I saw a lot more than meager efforts from the young man that was being groomed to become king.

In case you don’t remember the story  the two armies were camped close enough to hurl insults at each other and Goliath was yelling a challenge every morning that if they had a solider that would come fight him that they could settle the battle and declare a winner without everyone going into battle. All they had to do was select a solider to meet him and beat him in battle. Only problem was Goliath was at least twice the size of most men and an experienced expert at hand to hand combat that had never lost. I’m sure he was covered with scars from battle and had back hair thicker than the girls from Dover! You have probably met more than one of these loud mouths in your life but apparently Goliath could back up his boast. At least it looks like the soldiers believed he could because no body wanted to try when the cost of losing was certain death from a big rusty sword! So it had been a stalemate for a while before David showed up to drop off stuff. He wasn’t even a solider but he hears the challenge and immediately accepts. He is too small to wear the heavy armor or carry the big sword so he goes into battle with only his slingshot and wins. Everyone is amazed and he is an instant star.

How did he do it? The bible leaves no doubt that it was the hand of God but exactly how did God get the outcome he desired. It seems to me that David was groomed for this fight long before he ever saw Goliath. He used his past training, skill, cunning and bravery on that day along with good dose of common sense. Here is how he did it.

He stuck with a proven performer. Seems a lot of us want to abandon what has always worked in favor of something untried when we face a new problem. Sure the sword was the weapon of choice for war but David knew he would lose in a sword fight. Goliath was far to strong to fight up close and the slingshot would allow him to pelt him from a safe distance. It was a weapon David had practiced with and he knew it’s strengths and weaknesses. It would not kill unless the hit was perfect but it would sure make for a bad day for “Big Boy” even if he could only score hits. Remember “stoning” was a particularly painful form of execution.

He had a plan. How can you go do anything if you don’t have a plan? Notice the part of the story where he picked up the stones? He selected 5 stones. Did this mean he didn’t have faith? No it simply meant his plan was to do the best he could with what he had. I’m confidant that if Goliath hadn’t had  enough after the fifth stone that David would have picked up more and more until the giant’s head looked like it had been through an all day hail storm.

He had technique! You can’t do anything well unless you have a technique. You can practice the technique, improve the technique, change the technique or even abandon the technique but unless you have a technique you won’t improve. It was a technique he had perfected as a Shepard guarding his flock.  He knew that if he stayed far away and threw the stones that Goliath would have time to dodge or deflect the stones. His weapon of choice would have to be used up close. The bible says he ran straight towards him and was close enough that Goliath had no time to react but not close enough that Goliath could use his sword.

He matched his equipment to the task. How many times have you tried to use the wrong tool and gotten poor results. The bible says he selected smooth stones from the river bed. Ever wonder why. Wouldn’t a jagged stone make a nastier wound? Certainly it would but David was going to use all his skill to make a good shot (sounds like he went to Atlantic Shooting School!). He knew a jagged stone would not fly straight or come out of the sling at precisely the right time so even back then premium ammo was worth the effort.

He didn’t stop till he was sure the job was done. I’m guilty of this one! Start celebrating when the hard part of the job is done but something goes wrong finishing up the easy part! When Goliath went down he cut off his head without delay. Imagine if he had run back to his side to gloat after knocking him down and Goliath had gotten back up ready to fight! The old surprise slingshot technique might not work twice!

How many Goliaths are you facing? Even if you have never faced a real challenge you can be sure that some are waiting in your future. Maybe some of the same techniques that worked thousands of years ago will work for you too. Bottom line is you have to do your part and that means doing it the best you can, as hard as you can and for as long as it takes. After all, God didn’t design you to fail. So when the times to take down the giant have a plan, stick with what you know, use your most effective technique, have good equipment and don’t give up till you are the winner! Don’t worry about God doing his part, you just make sure you hold up your end of the bargain!

 

 

 

 

Timothy P. Whealton

 

 

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Have we changed?

Ugly by Design!

Have we changed or has the world around us changed? Is it our point of view or a new mindset? I watch very little television but if you watch an old television show it doesn’t take long to see the difference. If you go back to the time before TV the changes are even more apparent.
I watched and old rerun of the TV show the Rifleman recently. It was from the 1950 era and starred Chuck Connors. It was the same theme almost every episode as I remember. Lucas McCain would go to town with his young son Mark. There would be a bad man in town intent on doing harm to innocent people. Lucas would confront the evil man and eventually there would be a gunfight. Lucas would shoot and kill the bad man.
Not much different from our modern TV shows except for one thing. Lucas hated to do it! The show went to great lengths to show how much he hated having to take life. He would do it to protect innocent life but only then as a last resort. After he had killed the bad man it showed how sorry he was and how taking a human life was a terrible thing in any circumstance.
If you can stand to watch a modern program you will see leading characters that will kill without a second thought. Modern technology has made it so realistic that blood and body parts flying through the air are hardly noticed anymore. The gun comes out and goes off in a second and 2 minutes later the character is over it and on with his life. Has this changed us?
I wonder the effect of our television and movies with people around the world that don’t know what an American is except for seeing us on screen. Do they think we are really like that? They sure seem to be disgusted with us.
I remember being a small boy and going with my Dad when he would buy fishing tackle. Even though we went into the store to buy fishing tackle we would always go to the back of the store to look at the guns. I can remember him holding me up on his arm so I could see. It must have been in the mid-1950s cause nobody could have picked me after that without equipment. I can still remember how beautiful they were. The shiny black steel and the beautifully finished walnut gunstocks lined up in a wall rack were a sight to stir the imagination. Every gun in the store was beautiful and every gun there was for hunting or target use.
It is disappointing to go look at the guns when I go to a sporting goods store now. The beauty has gone. Everything is flat black or camouflage. It is almost like the gun was designed to look fearsome instead of beautiful. When I leave the gun counter and walk over to the knife counter it is the same story. The shiny blades have been made dull black and the edges of the knives look like predator teeth.
Our publications have changed as well. Since I am in the gun business I constantly receive gun magazines and sporting publications. These mirror what the general public pick up off the rack at the store. Bottom line is beauty has gone out of style. Even the people that hold the guns are scary looking. I took this picture while in the checkout line at the grocery store. I didn’t arrange it at all.

Figure 1Wal Mart magazine rack. Ugly by design

Does TV, Internet and print reflect what we think or do they tell us what we think?
Maybe we have just been told what we like so many times that we are starting to believe it. Adolf Hitler knew a few things about control and he said “If you tell them something long enough they will believe it.” I think that is exactly what has happened. Is it past the point of no return? Is scary the new beauty? Is it too late?
One thing I have been told enough that I believe it is that it is never too late to change. The Bible says “Think about what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.” The key word seems to be THINK! Do it often and do it for yourself. Don’t let a website, politician or anyone else do it for you. It has been proven over and over “What the mind can conceive the mind can achieve!”

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Peanut Match March 31 2018. Cove City, NC

CERTIFICATE of ACHIEVEMENT
THIS ACKNOWLEDGES THAT

HAS SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED THE
ATLANTIC SHOOTING SCHOOL PEANUT SHOOT

This person hit a single skinned shelled peanut at 300yards with one shot A.S.S.

It will be here before you know it! Any Rifle, any sight, no excuses. Sandbags on the ground or bench. No muzzle brakes

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John 3

At first you might wonder why 3 John is even in the Bible. It is the shortest book in the New Testament. It is the only New Testament book that doesn’t contain the name Jesus or Christ. It looks to be a personal letter only with little connection to our modern time but careful study proves otherwise.

3 John shows us that problems between Christians have been happening ever since the resurrection. This book was included in the Bible because the message hasn’t changed. Conflict between Christians hurts the church, the members and most of all the unsaved? How can it hurt the unsaved? How many times have you seen someone hesitant about beginning a relationship with Jesus because they have witnessed behavior by Christians that made them turn away. There can not be a larger loss than a human soul lost for eternity that would have found salvation in a church focused on God’s will.

So what is God’s will? Jesus told Paul when he converted him on the road to Damascus. Acts 26-18 “to open their eyes so they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in me.”
Sometimes these conflicts escalate into open ugly hostility but most of the time they will be more like a smoldering fire that can go on for years. They will greet each other and smile but there is no smile on the inside. This life style will even spread to their children and affect their lives as they are learning how to handle relationships.

But how do we as Christians handle and resolve the conflicts that arise in our church families? Like most problems it’s fairly easy if you are not one of the parties involved. Probably nothing is easier to solve than other people’s problems but terms like “they just need to get over it”, or “it’s time to move on” or “that’s just silly” never help.

God’s plan for us is a plan of starting over. The wonderful grace of God allows us to start over with a clean slate. We ask for forgiveness and God gives us a completely clean start. It is called being “born again” because at birth we are sinless and have no past. While it will never be possible for us to forgive like God he has equipped us try and follow his example. Through the study of God’s word we can become better Christians and be as the scripture says “known for our love”.

Here are some of the natural things to avoid.
1. The blame game. How long has this been going on? What did Adam say when God asked what he had done? “She made me do it! It’s her fault! You made her so it might be your fault too”. We have to own our part of the problem or it will never be repaired.

2. It’s not right but it makes me happy and God wants me to be happy. Wrong! God will never ask you to sin even once as a path to happiness.

3. “I don’t have to say I’m sorry because I didn’t do anything wrong”. It might be your attitude that is the biggest problem of all. It has been said “attitude is more important than fact” and it is the truth!

4. We want to win. We love winners, we make them heroes and idolize them. Sometimes it might seem like we have to “chose to lose” when we forgive but in reality we are choosing to win a much larger prize.

5. Forgiveness isn’t free. If you truly forgive there will be a cost involved. If there is a debt owed to you either financial or emotional and you release that debt unpaid you must pay the price yourself. God did it for you and the price was high. I never agreed with the people who said salvation is free. A dear price was paid for my salvation!

So how do we transform ourselves into people without all these failings? Obviously we as humans can never accomplish this but as Christians we can and must turn to God for help.

The first step for a Christian will be honest prayer from the heart. Not a reciting of memorized verses but real talking to God. Then with an open and receptive heart we have to listen to God. Then we will need more prayer as we ask God for the courage to do what we know is right. Knowing what is right is a lot easier than doing what is right.

When you talk with any committed Christian they will tell you God will push you out of your “comfort zone” but he will never leave you there. Out of the comfort zone is the “growth zone” for Christians.

I use to have an old man that would come into my shop and sit around. He didn’t say a lot but he listened carefully to all the shop talk and stories. One day he opened his wallet and gave me a small metal cross. He said he had been given the cross by an old man when he was young. He said it was meaningless at first but had become more important the longer it stayed in his wallet. The old man that gave it to him said “Keep this and don’t forget who you are”.

The little cross has been in my wallet 15 years now and it has become more and more valuable. Because every now and then when I’m looking for something I will see the cross and remember who I am. I am an adopted child of God.

 

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A good book for the shotgun hunter

Dove Hunting and Shotgunning
By Hurtford Smith Jr.

I just finished reading Dove Hunting and Shotgunning. I feel like I’m able to put forth ideas on both shotgunning and dove hunting. I have been a gunsmith for over 45 years and I repair around one thousand guns each year. (No wonder I’m tired!) I am also a dove hunter. Not just an opening day dove hunter but a hunt till the last day dove hunter. I have hunted, killed, cleaned and cooked most everything that flies and is legal in North Carolina. There is nothing I enjoy more than a good dove hunt and my friends feel the same way.
Short version is I really like this book. While teaching gunsmithing at the college for several years I searched countless books about guns, shooting and hunting for students. Most were filled with lots of info you would never need and written by people that needed to ask others about what works and doesn’t. Mr. Smith has done a great job of pruning away the useless information that can confuse you and tells you what works. His book looks small at first glance but it has every bit of the information you need to be a first class field shot on doves. If you can hit the gray feathered rocket you will be good to go on anything that flies.
Bottom line is you don’t have to know everything that can go wrong. Just take the advice of a solid hunter and shooter. If you have one for a friend you are blessed. If you don’t this book will tell you the same exact thing!

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Rimfires

Working on Rimfires

 

If your business is to survive you can never forget that you have to do more than fix guns, you have to make a profit. Working on rimfires can make this hard or impossible. Built from the cheapest of materials and many times poorly designed they can be a real time consumer for the gunsmith.

The average rimfire that is brought in for service has been shot thousands of times without cleaning and when it finally jammed the stuck round was pried free with pliers and screwdriver. The delicate feed mechanism that was formed from soft steel sheet metal or plastic now looks like it was hit by a drunk driver. All the other working parts are worn badly as well and the whole thing is a mess. Of course it didn’t cost much so don’t let the bill go over $40 without calling. Try to turn away these jobs as much as possible but some will be unavoidable. I’m not talking about Old Winchesters, Marlin 39s and Rugers here but you will quickly know which ones you need to avoid.

Make sure your customer understands you have to charge for your time and how extensive the work will be before proceeding. You will have customers that will not understand why it cost more to fix that it cost to purchase new and it is best to resolve this before investing your time and money. Yes there will be customers that have a special gun that was in the family and they want to fix it up for the grandkids or just memories but sometimes it just makes more sense to turn it into a wall hanger.

Also understand that if you do a repair on one of these worn out oldies it will be your baby from then on. The story that will be told was “ I carried to the local gunsmith and it hasn’t worked right since”. It won’t matter that you replaced the extractor last month and now the trigger is slipping, it will just be your fault you couldn’t even keep a 22 working. Remember a happy customer tells 1 and an unhappy customer tells 10!

OK you couldn’t avoid it and you have to work on it what do you look for?

Chamber damage– Make sure a firing pin that is too long or unrestrained and has not peened the edge of the chamber when the gun was dry fired. If the chamber is peened from the pin striking it has pushed up a burr into the chamber and will not be able to extract when it fires. If you cut this burr away the recess it leaves will be behind the case rim where the firing pin hits and the rim will not crush the priming compound. Better to iron out the burr with a chamber iron or a smooth tapered pin which will push the metal back into the recess formed from the strike of the firing pin on the chamber edge. Look at the chamber itself and a fired case to determine if the chamber has enlarged or swelled. Make sure the barrel has not slipped forward in the receiver and increased headspace .

Extractor– Check for wear or breakage. Maybe reshaping will improve functioning. Make sure it doesn’t catch on the chamber recess and its movement over the cartridge rim is without problems.

Feed mechanism or throat–See that it releases the cartridge at the correct time in the cycle and has not been deformed. Make sure that the cartridges are moved out of the throat and into the chamber without undue pressure or deforming the bullet. Remember it is a rimfire and can fire when the bolt strikes the rim to feed it into the chamber so proceed with caution!

Firing pin– Make sure the tip is correct shape and protrusion within normal limits. The best design will strike just inside the rim and not on the edge. This probably won’t matter unless it is a target rifle as long as it has sufficient force to crush the rim. If the rim is not supported by the chamber the pin strike will not be able to get good ignition. Dirt and powder residue accumulate in the firing pin recesses and cause light hits and misfires.

Trigger– Dirt and wear are the problems here. Trigger and sear notches wear down and need to be recut. If the original part was case hardened then your repair will not last unless you restore the surface hardness by carburizing and heat treating. Always check safety function when doing any work and make sure the gun will withstand several taps with the plastic hammer without firing. This can simulate the gun being dropped.

Magazines– Always a problem. Removable clips are easily lost and replacements are hard to find. Tube magazines are harder to lose but the internal springs break and rust and small dent will impinge on the follower and prevent it from working. Replacements are best but rebuild kits are available from Brownells.

Ammo– Lots of variation in ammo. Make sure the customer understands how to let the gun tell him which one it likes. This is easier than the other way around. Standard velocity, high velocity and hyper velocity all perform differently.

Remember all guns have the same basic cycles. Loading, feeding, firing, extraction and ejection are all required to be flawless. A good understanding of the cycle of operation and a thorough examination of the action will usually show what needs to be done. Work through each process and test fire thoroughly. Regular church attendance will also help ( at least with the cussing)

 

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accurcy testing

Accuracy Testing

 

The gunsmith needs a working knowledge of accuracy testing to be competent in rifle work. After all it doesn’t matter whether it is a target, tactical, hunting or plinking model, if it is a rifle or pistol it has to be accurate to be interesting. While the intrinsic accuracy of the firearm is usually the focus, this is always intertwined with ballistics to achieve the end result of a hit on target. The standard definition of a rifle is a firearm that fires a single projectile through a rifled bore to the place the sights are aligned. Sounds easy enough, unless something goes wrong. Chances are if you are interested enough to read this you already know that a lot of things go wrong every shot. Your job is to find a way to eliminate these errors or at least mitigate their effects to get a grouping of shots close enough together to satisfy the shooter.
Ever wonder exactly what you learned when you shot that group of three with all holes touching? Did you learn just as much on the next group with two in one hole and the third a sickening two inches away. Maybe you did without realizing it. A lot of shooters fire thousands of rounds without stopping to think about what the groups display. The rifle is telling you a story and you need to know how to listen.
The rifle is telling you what size the cone of fire is for the ammunition. It is a term you are probably not familiar with but every rifle has a cone of fire or area where the bullets will impact. This undetermined area is defined by firing several shots with as little deviation as possible. Now you don’t have to be a math whiz to know that if you have an unknown area and select three random points inside that area it will never be an accurate representation of that area but this is the norm when it comes to rifle testing. Does this mean you need to fire 100 round groups? No, don’t go off the deep end. First lets look at what we are trying to do.
With any range testing scenario we want to duplicate what the rifle will be doing when it is working or doing the job it was built to do. A deer rifle for a still hunter lives around the concept of one shot fired from a cold ( sometimes very cold!) barrel. The data you get from three shots might not be an accurate picture of what this gun will do the next three times this gun is fired in a hunting scenario. For the average weight barrel in a highpower rifle the temperature change is probably 40-50 degrees between shots. Combine this with the understanding that three random points are no better than a 36% representation of the group. For this rifle we need to define the group with more shots but all fired from a cold barrel. Preferably fired in the same ambient temperature as the hunt. While this might not be possible just be aware of what is best. Rifles and ammo can behave differently with a big temperature change.
So you go to the range and take a long time between shots, fire several rounds, and have good data, but what if the rifle will be used with a hot barrel? My match rifle has to shoot ten shot rapid fire strings. So doesn’t matter about cold barrel zero. Wrong! To get the most out of the rifle you need to know where that first shot is going. Careful testing and record keeping will tell you if your rifle will need adjustment after the first few shots. My best 600 yard rifle required me to come down a full minute after firing the second sighter. This is a big move to make when the first 2 are in the x ring but keeping a data book proved it. Careful record keeping and tracking will pay off.
For most of us accuracy testing will be shooting off the bench. If you think this doesn’t require skill you are misinformed. If you have never had any instructions in bench technique you need to understand you are shooting a tuning fork.

 

 

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Stock work

Working with Gunstocks

 

Working with gunstocks comes with the territory for the gunsmith. For some it is what they wish they could do all the time, others might be happier if guns didn’t have stocks. Personally I enjoy stock work but I don’t seem to make much money when I do. It just seems that there are not many shortcuts when it comes to quality stock work. Maybe having a business plan would be a good idea so you would know what to avoid and what to seek. Of course if you love the smell of walnut and the beauty of a feathered crotch (I’m speaking of a type of walnut!) you have found your place in life and will soon be famous for things of beauty. Let’s break our work down and look at the jobs that frequently come in the gun shop.

Fitting guns is a term used to explain changing the stock dimensions to fit a particular shooter. This line of work requires a thorough understanding of shotgun shooting as well as the gunsmithing skills involved in changing drop, length of pull, pitch and cast off. These specialist are usually in attendance at major shooting events and do a brisk business while there. Many times the fitter will have a try gun which is a shotgun with an adjustable stock so the shooter can adjust and try until he finds the perfect combination of drop, pull and cast. Then the dimensions are measured and recorded so the shooters personal gun can be modified. Attending one of these events is always beneficial and can open up opportunities for learning as well as future business.

Recoil pads and sling swivels are two of the jobs that show up frequently in the shop. While these two jobs seem simple they are high in nuisance value and anything but perfect work will show up and make you look like a novice or worse. Both of these jobs also carry the risk of damaging a fine stock so a little extra for insurance might be a good idea.

The sling swivels must be installed on center and secure but without any chance of splitting. Choose a drill that slightly smaller than the core of the screw you will be installing. Counter sink this hole at least 3/8” with a drill that matches the outside diameter of the screw. This helps prevent the screw from pulling up the wood as it tries to pull itself into the wood. Apply steady pressure downward while starting the screw for best results. For the swivels that have a nut on the back like on the forearm make sure it doesn’t contact the barrel. Also make sure to secure the swivel in the nut so it cannot possibly come out. This is a potential disaster when the swivel breaks and the rifle swings around while the shooter grabs to stop it. A drop of locktite or epoxy on the threads should do the trick.

Most of the time before you can fit a recoil pad you have to cut the stock to length or at least flatten the surface. Seems everybody has a different method for this and you will have to pick something you are comfortable with. For sure it is a lot easier to cut than put back so make certain of your measurements. Length of pull is measured from the trigger to the middle of the pad. Pitch is easier to determine by placing the gun butt down against the wall or vertical straight edge and measuring the muzzle deviation from the vertical. Most guns have a little negative pitch. This allows the butt to slide onto the shoulder without the top edge dragging and makes for more consistent gun mount. Measure other stocks and try them out on the customer. After all the idea is to fit the gun to the customer. I use masking tape and mark my cut with a marking scribe that holds a pencil and cut with a very fine cut hand saw. By letting the saw do the work with minimum pressure and holding both parts until the cut is done I get excellent results. Cutting through the tape help to minimize the saws effect on the finish and make for a smoother edge. Find the cutting method you prefer and practice on old stocks. You want to be confident before that customer comes in with the Superposed grade 12 and wants it 5/16 shorter with 1 3/8 pitch.

I cringe when I read some of the old instructions for installing recoil pads. Some of them actually recommend grinding the pad while it is on the stock. Never try this on a customer’s stock. There are several jigs that allow you to set the angle on the pad and hold it securely for grinding while the pad is attached to the jig. Practice on old stocks by cutting off the stock and refitting the old pad. The more pads you grind and fit the better your skills. This is a much safer way to learn as opposed to wrecking a customer’s stock. Don’t forget to seal the end of the freshly cut stock. The customer will thank you after he spends the day hunting in the rain. Just go slow and allow the sander to cut the pad. If you hurry heat will build and the pad will smear. The finished job should follow the lines of the stock and not have overhang or undercut. Most pad manufacturers have instruction for grinding their pads. They know what works best for their product and their instructions will help you get a great job. If the old screw holes in the stock interfere with alignment of the new pad then drill then out oversize and epoxy a hardwood dowel in the hole. After epoxy has hardened cut off flush and start over with new wood.

It seems that I am seeing more shooters lately seeking recoil reduction with the stock mounted recoil reducers. These are sealed units that have moveable weight inside that distributes the recoil force over a longer time period which takes the peak out of the recoil cycle. If the unit has mercury for the weight remember that the unit only works if the muzzle is pointed up so the mercury is in the back. Don’t put this type in a rifle that will be used from a tree stand. Some of these use the bolt hole already in the stock but you can also drill a hole for it if needed. These are large holes and require careful layout. Additional units can be installed in a recess routed into the forearm under the barrel. This can also balance out the gun but does add a little weight.

Glass bedding is very popular but not very well understood. While I don’t want to write another “how to” about bedding I think it might be more beneficial to go into why. For a rifle to shoot the same spot every time the receiver must rest in the same place in the stock every time. It should be a home without stress but secure enough maintain the gun in this perfect cradle. Before we had epoxy this was really hard to achieve with a wood to metal fit. Wood expands and contracts with the temperature and humidity. Epoxy to the rescue. While liquid it conforms perfectly and hardens to the mirror image of the receiver. Pop out the receiver, trim of the excess, reinstall the missing parts, and you are done. But does it shoot any better?

If the problem was wandering zero or the gun wouldn’t stay sighted in then maybe, but if it didn’t group at all it probably still won’t. For sure epoxy bedding will help and never hurt accuracy it won’t cure problem in other areas. If the problem is a bad barrel then all the epoxy in the world won’t help.

So you have decided to glass bed but which type is best? Do you want to pillar bed? Which type of epoxy? Which release agent? A lot of questions but with a little information you can make the best selection. Select the epoxy that is the easiest to use. I like Acra gel from Brownells. Mixes one to one with plenty of working time and stiff enough to stay put. Spray release from Brownells is the best release agent I ever used. No cleanup, easy to apply and fast. Just don’t forget to use it!

 

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Bedding Rifles

The Importance of Bedding Rifles

 

Some people know where the bedding is located, others have all sorts of ideas about what it does but rare is the person with a good working knowledge about bedding.

Maybe we should start with what it isn’t. It doesn’t cure any of the problems that are anywhere else. When you bed a rifle with a bad barrel, bad crown, crooked chamber or bolt it still has problems. As you will find out when you chase accuracy problems, accuracy doesn’t improve until you fix the last problem. Many customers come in the gun shop seeking miracles in the form of a bedding job. If the gun is shooting huge groups it probably won’t be bedding.

What a good bedding job will do is stabilize groups so that the gun will keep the same zero and sometimes tighten groups that are not round. An example might be the gun that shoots groups 1″ tall and 3″ wide. It might be the barrel settling in a different spot where it touches inside the forend. The real job we ask bedding to do is give the rifle action a perfect fit to the stock in the areas that bear the stress of recoil and attachment. This means behind recoil lugs and under the receiver especially around the guard screws or whatever holds the rifle in the stock. It should be a perfect mirror image of the receiver area and not allow any movement of the receiver but also not place any stress on the receiver. As tough as you might think this receiver is it still can be stressed in such a way that it will affect accuracy. When you consider that a small imperfection can be close to one guard screw, let’s say 1/4 inch behind the front screw. Now the front screw is tightened 50 inch pounds. This causes the rear of the receiver to raise. Now the rear screw is tightened and the receiver bends and flexes as the rear screw with the help of compound leverage from the position of the imperfection and the added effect of the inclined plane of the screw threads put tremendous pressure on the receiver. Don’t forget this was the receiver you labored over for many hours to make sure everything was square and in line. Okay, now you know why you need good bedding!

Let’s look at some of the things that go with synthetic bedding jobs before we start mixing the epoxy! One of the first things to decide will be is this a good idea. Plastic synthetic stocks that are made out of polyethylene plastic are not good candidates for epoxy bedding. This material will not bond with epoxy and the bedding will pop loose from the stock unless anchor holes are drilled in at an angle and these holes filled with the epoxy when applying the bedding. This is a tricky operation because it is hard to force the epoxy into a blind hole without air trapped in the bottom. Much better to discard this stock for a fiberglass or wood stock that will bond with the epoxy.

Next problem is what to do about the barrel and barrel channel. Do you want the barrel to float or touch with some upward pressure? Before you automatically say float the barrel have you ever considered why they build them with the barrel touching at the end of the forend? It isn’t because the factory doesn’t know better, it’s because on factory production type rifles they will group better with a little upward pressure to dampen barrel vibrations. Yes, target rifles have the barrel floated so nothing touches the barrel from the receiver forward but these guns have a lot of extra work done to them to minimize vibrations before they are put in the stock. You should inform the customer that there is no guarantee that the rifle will shoot better after the barrel has been floated and the receiver bedded, in fact it might shoot even shoot a little worse! If the decision is made to float the barrel because the barrel is pushing against one side understand that this correction should be made by properly centering the receiver and not by cutting away at the barrel channel until the barrel stops touching. This will result in an uneven gap on each side of the barrel or a gap big enough to “chase a cat around” if you try to event up.

Next problem is what type of epoxy bedding compound? While there are many types of epoxy out there to try the best advice I can give is stick to using something either well known to give great results or at least something built specifically for bedding rifle and guaranteed. It is too much work to try and save 3 dollars by using a cheap substitute. Remember, the customer is paying for the material and won’t be happy when the gun shoots loose in epoxy that broke or never hardened properly. You will also do better work when you use products that are easy to use with a longer working time. You will need a lot more than 5 minutes to properly apply and center the action in the epoxy. Compounds designed for bedding will have a generous working time. In the past I used Bisonite and Marine Tex with good results but for the last several years Brownell’s Acra Gel and Steel Bed have become my favorites. Generally I prefer the Acra Gel for most bolt gun beddings and use the steel bed for applications that require the maximum in compression strength like M1As and Garands. The Acra Gel seems to have a quality that allows it to absorb vibration. The Garands and similar service rifles don’t have a huge recoil area and I like to have something really hard to stand a lot of pounding. That’s where the Steel Bed excels. Building these rifles for match shooting is a specialty that has almost disappeared since the AR15 have taken over the sport but the occasional job still shows up.

Next question is do I need to pillar bed. The bedding process came about to replace the wood around the receiver with a better material. Wood will swell when it comes in contact with moisture and shrink when it dries out. Even when a receiver was bedded there was a lot of wood left under the bedding between the receiver and trigger guard that could react with moisture and cause changes. Pillar bedding consist of replacing the wood between the bottom of the receiver and the trigger guard around the guard screw. After pillar bedding the pressure from the guard screw will not bear on any wood that could compress or change with the humidity. The pillars can be made of aluminum or steel or any stable material that has sufficient strength. You could make your own on the lathe or purchase from any gunsmith supply business. One often overlooked option is to drill out around the guard screws like you would in a normal pillar installation and then pour in solid glass pillars. You would want to do this with something with great compression strength like Steel Bed. Aluminum Bed or Titanium work great too and save weight if that is a concern.

Bottom line is it has to be bedded to shoot to its full potential. The actual process isn’t rocket science but it does require a good working knowledge about accuracy, which areas bear recoil, strength of materials and most of all a careful workman. Remember, only good work has any value!

 

 

 

 

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The Second Tree

The Second Tree
I always wondered about the second tree. When God made Adam and Eve he had a plan. When they ate the fruit from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” they were banned from the Garden of Eden. But there was another tree called the “Tree of Everlasting Life.” Never heard much reference made about it but it must have been important.
Some things haven’t changed much since then. When God found them after they had disobeyed he asked Adam if had eaten of the tree the first thing he said was “the woman you made gave it to me”. Or to say “her fault and might even be your fault for making her!” She said “It was the serpent!” And the blame game goes on and on.
My practical side says if God made those two trees it was for a reason. One tree gave the knowledge of good and evil, the other gave immortality. My practical side also says there was no magic fruit except for the power of God. They must have been made for man so why was it wrong for them to eat? Obviously it wasn’t time!
Adam and Eve were in a test period. If they could have trusted God they may have been deemed worthy to eat from both trees. The trees were together in the center of the Garden so they must have been made to work together. Adam and Eve already believed in God. They even took walks with him in the Garden in the cool of the day. They failed when they didn’t trust God. It is a lot easier to believe than to trust. You believe when it is the logical thing to do. You trust when you put that belief into action and have something at stake. I believe the bridge will hold but I don’t trust it till I step out on it.
So what happened? God wasn’t mad and didn’t hate them. They failed and their sin separated them from God. God still loved them and made them coats out of animal skins (Gen 3.21). Then they had to leave the Garden and God and go into the world to make it sort of on their own. But what about the second tree?
God wanted to make sure they couldn’t get to the second tree so he put angels with flaming swords around the tree. Kind of seems like overkill. If they already had gotten thrown out of the Garden did they really need flaming swords?
Apparently God knows more about us than we know about ourselves. He knew they would eventually try to reach the tree. He obviously loved them so he must have wanted to protect them from a terrible fate. But what would be wrong with gaining everlasting life? If that life were to be spent separated from God it would be too terrible to contemplate. Eternity without God would be the cruelest sentence imaginable!
So what about us. Are we guilty and to be punished because they messed up? Not at all! God had a plan and it’s still working. We already have the knowledge of good and evil thanks to Adam and Eve. All we need is a way to remove the sin that separates us from God and we get to eat the fruit of the tree of everlasting life. Our savior Jesus made the sacrifice and paid our debt. If you accept Jesus there is nothing separating you from God. Then after trusting God you can freely eat and gain everlasting life.
I don’t know why it took me so long to figure out the second tree is Jesus!