Hogue overmolded pillar bed stocks - any good?

[BigBossman]

I picked up a nice Winchester Model 70 last weekend, and will use it for hunting. The wood is pretty - too pretty to bang around in the woods, so I was thinking about pillar bedding the action into a synthetic stock. I happened to come across this stick made by Hogue, and they seem like a decent price. It would be a lot less work to buy a stock that has the pillars in it, as opposed to doing it myself, not to mention having to buy/deal with epoxy and so forth.

Anyone here have experience?

 

[AR15barrels]

What is your criteria for being good?

 

[BigBossman]

What is your criteria for being good?

What I want to know will it be as effective as doing a pillar bed job on the stock I have on hand. This is a hunting rifle so it doesn't have to make bug holes but sub minute of angle would be nice. I have another Winchester model 70 in 308 that I pillar bedded into a synthetic stock and it shoots into 3/4 of an inch at a hundred yards. So I'm just wondering if I can take the lazy way out and buy a pillar bedded stock as opposed to going to the trouble of pillar bedding it myself.

 

[AR15barrels]

So if accuracy is your criteria (you did not clearly answer my question), that will depend on how rigid the stock you have now is as well as if your current stock is free floated.
The Hogue stock is not very rigid.
Having or not having pillars makes little difference if the stock is touching the barrel.
Rigidity is important to keep the stock from touching the barrel and then pillars and bedding come after that.
Even though a stock has pillars, if the stock is flexible so it can contact the barrel when you put tension on it, you may not see any accuracy improvement from having the pillars.
If a stock is free floated AND rigid enough to keep the barrel from contacting the stock during use, then pillars and epoxy bedding can be an improvement.
The same may be true of your existing stock too.
Real bedding done with epoxy and metal pillars is always better than stocks with factory pillars that have NOT also been bedded with epoxy but that is a separate concern from how rigid the stock is and also that the stock is properly free floated.

 

[BigBossman]

So if accuracy is your criteria (you did not clearly answer my question), that will depend on how rigid the stock you have now is as well as if your current stock is free floated.
The Hogue stock is not very rigid.
Having or not having pillars makes little difference if the stock is touching the barrel.
Rigidity is important to keep the stock from touching the barrel and then pillars and bedding come after that.
Even though a stock has pillars, if the stock is flexible so it can contact the barrel when you put tension on it, you may not see any accuracy improvement from having the pillars.
If a stock is free floated AND rigid enough to keep the barrel from contacting the stock during use, then pillars and epoxy bedding can be an improvement.
The same may be true of your existing stock too.
Real bedding done with epoxy and metal pillars is always better than stocks with factory pillars that have NOT also been bedded with epoxy but that is a separate concern from how rigid the stock is and also that the stock is properly free floated.

My apologies if I wasn't clear enough, but nevertheless you bring up some salient points. I did not mention it but I do, as a matter of course, free float the barrels on my bolt guns - bedded or not. We are in complete agreement there. Likewise, I have done pillar/epoxy bed on a few rifles, with excellent results. Usually I epoxy from the rear tang rest to about 1" or so past the barrel ring, and in conjunction with the rest of the barrel being free-floated, have achieved very satisfactory results.

And so you bring up an excellent point with the epoxy bedding being needed in addition to the pillars. I had not thought of that - whether epoxy will even adhere properly to the Hougue stock. So, you're right - an epoxy/pillar combo would be much preferable.

Now, regarding the flexibility of the stock. This is an interesting point to me, as my existing Winchester 70 was pillar/epoxy bedded (with a free floated barrel) into a takeoff factory Winchester synthetic stock. I would imagine that this stock if not a very rigid stock, and yet the rifle shoots into less than an inch all day long. Perhaps the epoxy is sufficient stiffness to negate that issue, or maybe the gun would do even better in a stiffer stock? As an aside - other than holding the rifle, I do not put any tension on the stock fore-end when shooting (except with competition rifles, in competition)..... not on the bench, and not when in the field.