Sliver,
Thanks for all the great information and the pictures. Its good to know that I am not the only one seeing "movement of wood around the metal, although minute most of the time."
My jig looks very similar to your jig, only I do not have the fancy plexiglass grid --very nice touch!!!! I also do not clamp the barrels (I was told not to), but I see that you guys are doing that. Why? Is there pressure on the barrels when you start bending?
One other thing I do is wrap the butt of the gun in masking tap to prevent the clamps from scratching the wood. I use a tin pan to collect excess oil and pre-heat the oil before I apply it. I also heat the wood slowly just as you described.
In general, here is my problem: it bugs me that the wood sometimes pulls away from the metal! I would love to know if the professionals encounter this problem also. I can't imagine sending off a high dollar gun to have the stock bent and getting it back with however slight gaps in the metal to wood fit.
Finally, high end guns will also have a bit of camber built into a gun with cast. Can you twist a stock to adjust for camber? If not, changing the cast will help shooter like me, but the camber on that stock will still be wrong.
