Re: Bedding a rifle. Do it yourself or go with a pro?
Try it yourself and then send it to us if it doesn't work out...there's a lot of little things that make bedding an art form, but if you get a one-to-one fit between barreled action and the stock, and do it so it's stress-free, you're on the right track.
One trick (out of about a dozen) I'll share that a lot of guys miss is the recoil lug. When you bed the lug, layer some tape (we use a couple strips of 10MIL tape from Brownells)on the bottom flat of the lug so you create a gap between the bottom of the lug and the bottom of the lug recess in the stock. The reason being, if you don't, after you relieve the pillars and install your barreled action and torque your action screws, the barreled action may be primarily resting/pivoting/torquing on that lug's bottom surface instead of resting stress-free in it's entire bed....I actually gave two tips...one more thing, it's risky if you're a beginner, but for the least amount of stress possible you do need to bed the barreled action and the bottom metal together as they will be upon final assembly....good luck..