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Holland Pillar System

4K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  faucettb 
#1 ·
Have any of you guys used the Holland Pillar Bedding system on a Remington 700 BDL and if so, can you tell me how you liked it. I just purchased a laminated wood stock and am planning on pillar bedding a Remington 700 SPS in it. I was going to use regular pillars however the brief description Brownell's gives regarding the Holland Pillars is intriguing. It is hard to tell how the work from the description in the catalogs.

Thanks
 
#3 ·
Good advice from kdub. Most all piller bedding systems are similar. They basically provide a sold brace between the floor plate and the action. This is supposed to keep the stock from compressing as the action screws are tightened up and if you torque the screws to a specific torque it maintains the same pressure on the barreled action in relation to the stock. This in turn is supposed to give better accuracy.

I've been doing this glass bedding thing now for nearly 40 years and have done a pile of laminated stocks. Average accuracy increase with a good glass bedding job runs 10 percent and sometimes better. Piller bedding really hasn't shown me a lot of difference or any real increase in accuracy over standard glass bedding, but I like the system.

Keep in mind also that a laminated stock is really a synthetic stock with layers of wood held in an epoxy base. These are so stable and hard that the glass bedding really only provides a cast in fit for the barreled action instead of an epoxy stiffener that it does for a standard wood stock.

Did I mention that I liked laminated stocks and I also like a nice wood stock. I'll leave the plastic stuff for toys.
 
#4 ·
In my experience, everthing Brownells sells is worth a look. I won't buy every gizzmo that they sell, but I have been well satisfied with what I have bought. Suppling the "smithy" is thier only buesiness. Tech support has been good to me. Worth a call if you have questions. Thier operation is not very far from me(hour or two). Only been by on weekends(closed). I tend to trust them to do fine buesiness with all shooters. Big or small.

Cheezywan
 
#5 ·
pillar bedding

Sir;
I do not like pillar bedding although many do.
My problem with it is that the wood MUST also be compressed not just the bedding pillars.
I much more likely would trust Brownells STEEL BED rather than pillars!
Laminated stocks - if you get a good wood to metal inlet they're as good as glassing in my opinion.
One shouldn't think that pillar bedding negates checking the guard screws every year or so - maybe sooner if it was me.
With pillar bedding you CAN lose the important dampning effect of a good wood stock. As the wood is initially compressed with pillar bedding it will shrink and you will think your screws are tight when they're only tightening on the pillars.
HNB
 
#6 ·
I understood that the idea behind pillar bedding is to isolate the receiver from the wood as much as possible. In fact, the book "Accuraizing the Factory Rifle" recomends setting the portion of the pillar touching the receiver .015" above the surface of the wood. Apparently the idea is to minimize receiver contact to the two pillar surfaces and the recoil lug. Is this not correct? The recoil lug is also bedded in a mixture of epoxy and atomized steel.
 
#7 ·
Your correct seatleroadwr. If you look at the Savage factory piller bedded stocks, both wood and synthetic you'll find that's true. The really important piece of an action that glass bedding helps is the recoil lug. That contact must be solid to the stock, especially wood stocks. Even synthetic and laminated stocks will take a beating from the forces applied to that recoil lug if it's allowed to move in a stock i.e.does not have solid contact with the stock.

Bedding that recoil lug into the stock keeps the barreled action solid. Mauser actions with a small recoil lug are especially prone to break stocks unless the lug is bedded solidly to the stock and rifles such as the Winchester model 70 retaining the same recoil lug system were prone to breaking stocks so a steel rod was often fitted thru the stock behind the recoil lug before epoxy bedding became more common.

Even then most rifle makers relied on tight fitting bedding in the wood rather than glass bed stocks. With the commonality of custom rifle makers and gunsmiths using epoxy bedding materials many large gunmakers are now both glassbedding and pillerbedding their rifles.

Keep in mind that a good epoxy glass bed job creates a cast in fit between the stock and the action and recoil lug. For years I liked to open the stock bolt holes to a half inch and fill them with accra glass. Once this has set drilling out the holes to slightly larger than the stock bolts gives a piller bedded stock with a bedding material that has three times the tensile strength of steel. In essence piller bedding without the steel pillers that need set in the same epoxy to begin with.

For the same reason I've never understood the move to aluminum full length bedding blocks that though are a machined fit to the action still are not the cast in fit epoxy bedding material that has more strength than steel and is has an epoxy bond to the wood doesn't do as well or better.

I do like the idea of piller bedding, but haven't seen the accuracy improvements shown by simple glassbedding. It's the same with free-floating a barrel, often a bedding block applying 5 to 7 pounds upward pressure on the end of the forearm to the barrel will yield an accuracy increase as good or better than free floating. This is the reason many gun makers use it. Not to say that some of my rifles aren't free floated because it does work in some cases to improve accuracy.

Years ago Speer was testing the difference in accuracy between free floated barrels and barrels bedded in solid in the stocks. They found that free floating really started giving measurable accuracy increases once barrel weight exceeded four pounds. A four pound barrel is a heavy barrel.

Geeze I sure got carried away on that post. Hope you could follow some of my meandering.
 
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