Glass bedding the Great Plains Riffle.

[Mr Nick]

I am considering glass bedding my GPR. I noticed that when the barrel is hooked into the rear tang, considerable pressure is needed to spring the barrel down into the stock. Is this normal? I seems to me that this tension would have an effect on accuracy. On the other had, maybe this tension is needed because the barrel hooks into the tang and is not part of the tang? I had thought about bedding so that there would be no tension, just a snug fit but I,m not sure if this is the right thing to do? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

I wouldn't glass-bed a rifle with a "hooked-breech"!!

......... and, yore accuracy will not suffer a bit with the heavy oct. barrel!! :imo:

YMHS
rollingb

 

[Zonie]

IMO, a hooked breech gun like yours should not act like it has a lot of binding when the barrel is down in the stock so the key can be pushed thru. The Key should be a snug fit but that's about all.
Because the installed key determines where the barrel is in relation to the stock, adding glass bedding compound won't accomplish a thing if the breech is binding before the barrel is down to where the key can be installed.

It is possible the breech tang wasn't inletted quite perpendicular to the axis of the installed bore.
Before worrying about it too much, what kind of accuracy are you getting? IMO if the gun is shooting to the same point on the target, then it's telling you there isn't a problem.

If it is hitting all over the place with every different load you try, then be concerned.

Rather than trying to reinstall the tang in the wood, you might try filing a VERY little amount of material off of the lower area of the barrels breech plug, or off of the forward side of the hook on the barrels breech plug.
Either way, it will allow the barrel to "rock" down into the stock further.
If you try either of these methods, go REAL slow. File a little, try it to see what it did, file it a little more...
It doesn't take much material off of either location to make a lot of difference in the fit.

When your done, IMO, the barrel should drop into the stock almost enough for the key to be installed.
With just a "little" pressure on the top of the barrel, the key should slide thru.

 

[Smoke Rookie]

I bet your rifle is pretty new. My GPR was like that for about the first dozen times I had the barrel off, but it settled down afterwards. Don't know if the stock wore in a little bit or what, but now it set down in there perfect. I would wait a little while, and see if it settles in some. :results:

 

[Gordon Horn]

When I built my GPR, I not only bedded the barrel, but I bedded the tang and behind the tang and breech. I buttered it all in the stock and set the barrel and hooked breech in as one unit. File all bottoms and edges of the metal smoothe and use release agent on both and then bed the locked breech and barrel as one unit. My bedding has the serial number, or some number, imbedded in it. This guarntees that the locked barrel and tang will not move ever. I think this accurizes the rifle very well. Don't worry, you can still unhook the barrel from the breech and not bother the bedding. If you want it to shoot center, bed it.

:imo:

Flatlander

 

[Mr Nick]

Thanks for the input. I have bedded a few bolt action rifles and usually floated the barrel but this one threw me. And yes Smoke Rookie, it is a new unfired rifle.

 

[sneakon]

I have a TC Hawken with a Green Mountain barrel that is glass bedded. That gun is a much better shooter than my factory TC Hawken. These guns are not really comparable because of different barrels/different twist, so I can't say how much the glass bedding adds.

 

When I built my GPR, I not only bedded the barrel, but I bedded the tang and behind the tang and breech. I buttered it all in the stock and set the barrel and hooked breech in as one unit. File all bottoms and edges of the metal smoothe and use release agent on both and then bed the locked breech and barrel as one unit. My bedding has the serial number, or some number, imbedded in it. This guarntees that the locked barrel and tang will not move ever. I think this accurizes the rifle very well. Don't worry, you can still unhook the barrel from the breech and not bother the bedding. If you want it to shoot center, bed it.

:imo:

Flatlander

Flatlander,.... What kind of "groups" were you git'n with yore GPR "before" you glass-bedded it?????

All GPR's thet I've ever had (20+), shot "center" and none of them were "bedded"!!

YMHS
rollingb

 

[Gordon Horn]

I did the bedding as part of building the kit. This one had a movement issue where the hooked barrel and tang fit together. I think this was due in part to the fact that the forearm of the stock has a small warp in it. This caused the barrel mortise to line up a bit crooked with the face of the tang when it was screwed into its place. The barrel and tang would line up very well outside of the stock, its when it was placed in the stock that some things I did'nt like happened. Bedding it in this fashion solved the problem. It stays strait now and no movement, but I had to file down the inside of the nose cap to get it fitted.

All part of the fun! :RO:

 

[Howard]

I bet your rifle is pretty new. My GPR was like that for about the first dozen times I had the barrel off, but it settled down afterwards. Don't know if the stock wore in a little bit or what, but now it set down in there perfect. I would wait a little while, and see if it settles in some.

Noticed the same thing with my Great PLains Hunter. Settled in nicely after the first few times I had the barrel out. It's a stock thing.

:relax:

 

[NORD]

When I built my GPR, I not only bedded the barrel, but I bedded the tang and behind the tang and breech. I buttered it all in the stock and set the barrel and hooked breech in as one unit. File all bottoms and edges of the metal smoothe and use release agent on both and then bed the locked breech and barrel as one unit. My bedding has the serial number, or some number, imbedded in it. This guarntees that the locked barrel and tang will not move ever. I think this accurizes the rifle very well. Don't worry, you can still unhook the barrel from the breech and not bother the bedding. If you want it to shoot center, bed it.

:imo:

Yes I did the same thing to my GPR and it is capable of shooting 2" groups at 100 yards without blinking! :front:

Flatlander

 

[ResearchPress]

From here in the UK I read many bulletin boards and of "Keeping Tradition Alive" to quote from the top of the page. I have never been able to reconcile this approach with glass bedding rifles. Why not use traditional materials or just buy an in-line or even a centre fire rifle?

David

 

Using that logic I could ask you, "Why not quit using this non-traditional internet for your information?" It's the spirit of traditionalism that keeps us going be it coil spring GPR locks to modern steels used in our barrels. Most of us here know the difference between putting a scope on a brown bess and using a bit of bedding compound to steady a barrel a bit. Inline and centerfire comments used to belittle have very little appreciation here so let it end as quickly as it began.

 

[Zonie]

I think David made a legitimate comment without belittling anyone.
IMO, the subject is glass bedding a stock and barrel.
The use of epoxys or similar materials to obtain line to line fits between the stock and the barrel is indeed modern idea.

Getting back to the basic question, IMO most modern guns have rather flimsy barrels. A little pressure on these can deflect them significently.
These modern guns are also being used at ranges of 200+ yards distance where a little change in the barrels direction can be noticed.

On the other hand, when the barrel is 7/8 to 1 1/8 in crossection it is IMO far more likely to dictate where the stock should live than it is to allow the rather flimsy stock to bend it enough to affect accuracy.
Add to this the fact that most muzzleloaders are shot at ranges which are inside 120 yards. At these distances, a slight bending of the heavy barrel is far less likely to affect accuracy to any measurable degree. :m2c:

 

You're right Zonie, belittle wasn't the right word to use. I should have said," It seems unfriendly to suggest to someone that if they are interested in asking the forum's advice on bedding their muzzleloader's barrel that they should forget about it and go to inlines or centerfires." I stand corrected.

 

[Gordon Horn]

Correct, Zonie, barrel bending may never be any problem with the GPR, but the issue I had was movement in the hooked breech system. IMO, any movement in this area when the gun fires can cause an accuracy problem even as close as 50 yds. GPRs being a production gun, the wood to metal fit in the breech area isn't always as good as custom guns. I'm sure there are numerous ways to tighten the fit of the hooked breech system, at the time bedding was the best way I had and that is what I used. I doubt the value of my GPR will ever be any more than the $225 I paid for the kit several years ago, if even that much, so traditional wasn't my main concern. An accurate Deer rifle was my concern. I may be wrong (nuthin' unusual there) but I feel that bedding a hooked breech system is good accuracy insurance. :m2c:

 

[ResearchPress]

There was no intent to insult anyone in my posting; if that was the result then I apoloigise.

However, the use of glass bedding is still something I find contradictory to "the spirit of the original" or "keeping tradition alive". Hunting or target shooting, I appreciate that people want an accurate rifle. Glass bedding may assist but there are alternatives; see the following for example:Bedding the Parker-Hale.

The North-South Skirmish Association go to great lengths to be sure that arms used in their events are of genuine Civil War issue, however they permit glass bedding; hardly a contemporary material and again to me contradictory to "tradition".

It just appears to me that some sort of hybrid arm is being created and any historical context of using a muzzle loader lost.

David

 

[buckknife]

IMHO your lock is on too tight,turn the screw out 1 turn or so to see if it makes any difference.

 

[BLAHMAN]

Well, concerning bedding and the use of modern stuff to allow us a better group, I wonder what did the old timers use, if any, to 'bed' their guns?

We all know how wood stocks swell and shrink, did the guys building guns way back when use stuff to stabilize their work?

Did they use beeswax, did they use pine pitch, did they use tar? Did they use anything?

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Maybe they just took the time to build them properly in the first place? It was a different world then and even though the Industrial Revolution had taken place, pride of workmanship was still common and fit and finish were of a high order. Many of these early firearms are still in fireable condition. One hundred and fifty or two hundred years from now, I wonder how many of today's new guns will
be shootable.