i knopw what you mean scott. the fact that you cant bake keys in max is dumb. I bake all the time in maya. i am always constraining stuff, baking, reverse constraining, baking again etc. I sure do love maya.....
i dont know a ton about biped, but how I would do it in maya, would be create a dummy object, and then link that to the shotty, then point constrain the L hand to the dummy, then move the dummy till the hands grips the foreend. should work...