My first attempt at doing a pillar job. I wasn't going to post this unless the job was a success and the results were good. However, I decided good or bad, I will post it. If the results suck, well then some humility will do me good and I will go from there. If I can't get outside my comfort zone and take risks or accept failure from time to time, I am doing myself no good.
This is a CZ 457 Pro Varmint .22LR. I decided to do this because the rear action screw was not holding torque due to the wood stock compressing. I'm hoping that the results show some improvement in accuracy as well. The pillars were purchased from Pete's Pillars and are the slim line design. The modeling clay was purchased from Amazon and the epoxy is Devcon two-part steel epoxy.
Here we see the factory setup. If you look closely on the front screw location underneath, the bottom plate has only been touching the front half of that area surrounding the screw hole (the rear half of that area is still textured where the plate isn't compressing). I'll touch on that issue further later on.
The pillars come oversized in length at 1.25" in length each, to allow a custom fit depending on the stock being used. So before I start drilling holes out, I need to know how long my pillars will need to be. I couldn't think of a better way than to use my calipers along with the flat end of an unused punch. The rear measured 1.117" and the front measured 0.960".
Now I get set up on the drill press to enlarge the holes. The original holes are 1/4" and I will be opening them up to 9/16". These are not precision holes being drilled, because the pillars are not being pressed into the wood, so I'm just simply making a large bore for the pillars to sit in the center of and be surrounded by epoxy. I'm sure I could have used a hand drill, but my neighbor let me borrow his drill press and it just makes things easier.
Lining things up with a 1/4" bit for the front action screw hole.
Then I swap in gradually increasing sizes of drill bits. I started with 5/16, then 3/8, then 1/2 spade, then finally 9/16 spade. I did this to prevent accidental chipping out of big chunks of material. The spade bits were what I had on hand to use that would fit the 3/8" chuck on the drill. I purposely left some material at the bottom, so I could finish it with a round file.
Now we move onto the rear hole.
After that, I cleaned things up with a round file and the stock is done with this stage.
Now we move onto reducing the length of the pillars. Pretty simple here. I used a large flat file, a small vise and permanent marker to identify close to where I needed to be and took my time. The front needed more material removed, so I sped things up with a hacksaw. Once I got close to the final measurement, I went nice and slow, making sure to keep the surface squared. Once done I used a drill bit by hand to create a little chamfer on the inside. Then roughed up the outside surface with 400 grit sandpaper.
Front
Rear
Next I check to see how the pillars look on the action/receiver. And I notice a problem immediately. The bottom plate is not sitting flat on the front pillar. This ends up being a 3 part problem.
The 3 issues found. First, I notice the plate is hitting the front edge of the magazine well, which is plastic. So I remove that and use my flat file to remove some material. Recheck, it's no longer contacting the magwell and it's a little better, but still not correct. Second, I notice something very interesting after getting the magwell issue resolved. The action screw is tight, but the plate and pillar are loose. The screw was too long and was bottomed out. That might explain why the front screw never lost torque before. So I removed 1 thread from the length. Now things tighten up correctly. Third, I put a slight bend in the plate to allow it to sit flat and still connect to the trigger guard properly. These issues are now resolved.
The next step was prepping the action and stock with modeling clay and a release agent (Kiwi natural shoe polish). It began to get late in the night and I completely forgot to take ANY pictures of this process. This was the most challenging part of this project for me so far. Having really never done this sort of thing before and only researching what others have done online (but not the exact same rifle/stock) it proved to be quite the challenge. I was super nervous about getting epoxy where it didn't need to be and not getting it where it did need to be. This took me a very long time with the clay and frankly I didn't enjoy it one bit. But I will have to show the after pictures when I remove the action after the epoxy cures to give an idea of the prep work.
With the stock and action prepped, I put the pillars in place on the action, put epoxy up top surrounding the holes and placed the action into the stock. I then placed zip ties around them to keep in place. I did not have surgical tubing as I'd seen others use and I know I just wanted things held together tight enough to keep from coming apart, but not too tight to cause stresses anywhere they shouldn't be. I then filled in around the pillars with epoxy. This part was quite challenging as well. I used a small pocket screwdriver and toothpick to work the epoxy down into the holes.
If I made one mistake, it might be that I let the epoxy set overnight with the rifle sitting up-right, which allowed some of the epoxy to drip out the bottom. I could be wrong on that though. When I checked this morning, there were some small voids that I filled with a bit more epoxy. Probably not needed as some of that will be removed later anyways. I will be crossing my fingers tomorrow night when I separate the action. I used two layers of shoe polish (did not buff off).
This is a CZ 457 Pro Varmint .22LR. I decided to do this because the rear action screw was not holding torque due to the wood stock compressing. I'm hoping that the results show some improvement in accuracy as well. The pillars were purchased from Pete's Pillars and are the slim line design. The modeling clay was purchased from Amazon and the epoxy is Devcon two-part steel epoxy.
Here we see the factory setup. If you look closely on the front screw location underneath, the bottom plate has only been touching the front half of that area surrounding the screw hole (the rear half of that area is still textured where the plate isn't compressing). I'll touch on that issue further later on.
The pillars come oversized in length at 1.25" in length each, to allow a custom fit depending on the stock being used. So before I start drilling holes out, I need to know how long my pillars will need to be. I couldn't think of a better way than to use my calipers along with the flat end of an unused punch. The rear measured 1.117" and the front measured 0.960".
Now I get set up on the drill press to enlarge the holes. The original holes are 1/4" and I will be opening them up to 9/16". These are not precision holes being drilled, because the pillars are not being pressed into the wood, so I'm just simply making a large bore for the pillars to sit in the center of and be surrounded by epoxy. I'm sure I could have used a hand drill, but my neighbor let me borrow his drill press and it just makes things easier.
Lining things up with a 1/4" bit for the front action screw hole.
Then I swap in gradually increasing sizes of drill bits. I started with 5/16, then 3/8, then 1/2 spade, then finally 9/16 spade. I did this to prevent accidental chipping out of big chunks of material. The spade bits were what I had on hand to use that would fit the 3/8" chuck on the drill. I purposely left some material at the bottom, so I could finish it with a round file.
Now we move onto the rear hole.
After that, I cleaned things up with a round file and the stock is done with this stage.
Now we move onto reducing the length of the pillars. Pretty simple here. I used a large flat file, a small vise and permanent marker to identify close to where I needed to be and took my time. The front needed more material removed, so I sped things up with a hacksaw. Once I got close to the final measurement, I went nice and slow, making sure to keep the surface squared. Once done I used a drill bit by hand to create a little chamfer on the inside. Then roughed up the outside surface with 400 grit sandpaper.
Front
Rear
Next I check to see how the pillars look on the action/receiver. And I notice a problem immediately. The bottom plate is not sitting flat on the front pillar. This ends up being a 3 part problem.
The 3 issues found. First, I notice the plate is hitting the front edge of the magazine well, which is plastic. So I remove that and use my flat file to remove some material. Recheck, it's no longer contacting the magwell and it's a little better, but still not correct. Second, I notice something very interesting after getting the magwell issue resolved. The action screw is tight, but the plate and pillar are loose. The screw was too long and was bottomed out. That might explain why the front screw never lost torque before. So I removed 1 thread from the length. Now things tighten up correctly. Third, I put a slight bend in the plate to allow it to sit flat and still connect to the trigger guard properly. These issues are now resolved.
The next step was prepping the action and stock with modeling clay and a release agent (Kiwi natural shoe polish). It began to get late in the night and I completely forgot to take ANY pictures of this process. This was the most challenging part of this project for me so far. Having really never done this sort of thing before and only researching what others have done online (but not the exact same rifle/stock) it proved to be quite the challenge. I was super nervous about getting epoxy where it didn't need to be and not getting it where it did need to be. This took me a very long time with the clay and frankly I didn't enjoy it one bit. But I will have to show the after pictures when I remove the action after the epoxy cures to give an idea of the prep work.
With the stock and action prepped, I put the pillars in place on the action, put epoxy up top surrounding the holes and placed the action into the stock. I then placed zip ties around them to keep in place. I did not have surgical tubing as I'd seen others use and I know I just wanted things held together tight enough to keep from coming apart, but not too tight to cause stresses anywhere they shouldn't be. I then filled in around the pillars with epoxy. This part was quite challenging as well. I used a small pocket screwdriver and toothpick to work the epoxy down into the holes.
If I made one mistake, it might be that I let the epoxy set overnight with the rifle sitting up-right, which allowed some of the epoxy to drip out the bottom. I could be wrong on that though. When I checked this morning, there were some small voids that I filled with a bit more epoxy. Probably not needed as some of that will be removed later anyways. I will be crossing my fingers tomorrow night when I separate the action. I used two layers of shoe polish (did not buff off).
