pillar bedding question

[lurcher]

I'm sporterizing an old swedish mauser, I plan to turn up an aluminium pillar for the rear action screw, I haven't done this before. I read on another site that it is wise to machine the hole in the pillar a little wider than the screw so that the screw can fit smoothly within the pillar with say a wrapping of electrical tape. The idea being that with the small amount of space between the pillar and the screw recoil won't  transfer energy directly through the pillar to the stock.

Is this the way to go?

Many thanks

John
NZ

[gunnut69]

Mauser was a real genius. He pillar bedded the front action screw and in the rifles as they were produced there was also a pillar in the rear. He recognized the inherent weakness of the rear tangs to flexing and stopped the problem cold. You are correct. The pillars must not touch the action screw. Energy transfered thru such contact will cause accuracy problems. Of course you realize the purpose of pillar bedding is to stop the action screws from gradually crushing the wood between the action and the bottom metal. That may cause the rifle to shoot worse as time progressed or 'going sour' as they say. Glass bedding the action and a couple inch of the barrel reinforce will usually benefit accuracy the most. I would glass the rifle and once your satisfied with the accuracy then pilar bedding can be done to keep the rifle at it's peak. They mausers rear tang is pretty weak so a pillar or spacer in the rear action screw hole is a good idea to keep from warping the action as it's being glassed although I still prefer pillar bedding last. Some say that recoil should be transmitted thru the recoil and the shoulders of the action just in front of the trigger cut and thru the rear of the magazine box. This may be the case but it is quite difficult to get all three of these surfaces into contact at precisely the same time. My solution is to fit the rear to areas fairly loosely and the recoil lug tightly. With the advent of glass bedding materials the secondary surfaces are redundant.