Bedding CF Stocks: Pillars or No?

[PathFinder]

I'm about halfway through a new Tikka build, and the next thing that needs to be planned out is exactly how the bedding will be done. For the main bedding of the action to the stock, the plan is to relieve a bit of material out with a dremel and do the typical full length bedding (from the rear of the tang, along the sides of the action, all the way to just in front of the recoil lug) with MarineTex. That part makes sense to me, and has worked in the past. My current Manners EHT is full length bedded, but not pillar bedded and has been great.
My question is whether or not it is necessary to install pillars as well. The stock is a Stocky's VG2 CF stock, but I think the same rules would apply to Manners/Mcmillan/Alterra etc. The bottom metal is Lumley 7075, and it will be permanently bonded to the stock. I'm thinking that should add a significant degree of rigidity as well. There are a couple of reasons that I'm hesitant to add the pillars. One is that if they're too long, they would mitigate the benefits of the full length bedding to some degree by putting all of the force primarily on those two points. On the other hand, if they're too short they wouldn't be contributing anything.
Does anyone have experience one way or the other?

 

[Coxen02]

I've never bedded an action myself and honestly I may never do it. It's a very important thing to get right and I would rather pay a professional 2-300ish and know that it is going to turn out awesome. But to answer your question, I really like the idea of the pillars and have never gotten a bedding done without them. Yes they have to be the perfect size but when done right, it provides less strain on your stock. I don't want my stock to compress over time from the torque of the action screws. And I want consistent torque on those screws every time I fire a round or take the gun apart and put it back together. I also feel it's just one extra way to decrease movement when firing, and when talking about custom rifles why not just go the extra mile?
Not sure if that helps or not but that is my thinking behind it.

 

[Wrench]

Check out hollands pillars. If you're looking to glue in the bottom metal....I suggest giving his pillars a hard look. They're to pillars what hawkins rings are to talleys.

 

[jjjones7]

Ultimately it depends on the stock. McMillan says it is unnecessary to pillar bed their stocks. Pillars came about when Brown precision and McMillan first started making stocks. The foam they used (a urethane type) did actually need them or it could be compressed. A modern McMillan is built entirely different and 55-65 inch lbs of torque will not compress them. I cannot speak to the construction of a stocky’s but I will say I’ve ran several Macmillan’s without them on rifles that shot extremely well and never had even the slightest hiccup.

 

[Griffin99]

It’s definitely worth pillar bedding just to be able to torque the action down without having to worry about the stock compressing

 

[gbflyer]

McMillan puts pillars in their edge fill stocks. At least the 2 I got from them.