When working on the Boyd’s stock, the author used a padded vise for the fore-end and a free-standing support for the action area.

With the metal work just about complete, I'm ready to fit the Mauser barreled action to my Boyd's walnut stock. The stock has been inletted by the manufacturer and will require very little additional work. My initial inspection indicated that a limited amount of wood would have to be removed around the action; however, most of the work would be in the barrel channel.

Keep in mind that there are a gazillion different barrel contours from goodness knows how many different barrel manufacturers. It's just not possible or practical for a stock manufacturer like Boyd's, or anyone else for that matter, to provide a perfectly inletted barrel channel for every possible barrel contour and action combination. Consequently, you should never be surprised if you have to open up a barrel channel to some degree.

Actually, it's not all that difficult. In fact, it's one of the easiest inletting tasks you'll face. All you'll need are a few small gouges and scrapers along with some inletting black and a bit of patience.

Inletting
The first step is to strip the receiver of the bolt, trigger, bottom metal, trigger guard, and in this case, the receiver sight. After that, a small brush is used to apply inletting black to the bottom half of the receiver and the barrel. Inletting black is a thin paste-like material that will transfer to the wood when the coated metal comes into contact with the stock. Those contact points will show a trace of inletting black. You know exactly where the wood is hitting metal. There's no guessing to it. If there's no black, there's no contact. The basic idea is to remove wood that contacts the barreled action and prevents it from fully seating in the stock.

The author used Forster inletting guide screws to make sure the barreled action was always properly positioned when placing it in the stock.

Don't go crazy and cut too much. Take out as little as possible after each impression with the black-coated metal. It's a lot better to spend extra time scraping away wood rather than make heavy cuts with a gouge or Dremel tool and end up with unsightly or large gaps between the wood and metal.

My favorite tool for this work is a scraper. You can make your own in any shape you need with nothing more than a file or a grinder. Broken hacksaw blades are ideal for small scrapers. Just grind 'em to the shapes and sizes you need. The secret to a good scraper is to leave the tiny burr you get on the bottom edge of a piece of metal when you file or grind it. That burr actually cuts or scrapes away the wood.

Bedding
Once the barreled action was fully seated in the stock, the next step was to apply the synthetic bedding. I'm a strong believer in synthetic bedding because of its multiple benefits. Most importantly it ensures that the fit between wood and metal is 100 percent perfect. To get a similar fit between wood and metal without bedding requires exceptional skill that few of us have. Synthetic bedding makes it possible for folks with average ability to get superior results. Synthetic bedding is also an effective sealer for the wood. With a coating of bedding there is little or no chance that oil or grease will penetrate and weaken the wood. And synthetic bedding will strengthen the wood and help to prevent recoil-related damage.