300 wby vanguard Bell & Carlson stock

[stagpanther]

While waiting for some reload components to (possibly) come in, I revisited my 300 wby magnum which started life as a Weatherby Vanguard First Light, but later transitioned to free float stocks in an MDT chassis and a Bell & Carlson. The MDT unfortunately could not accommodate a wide enough magazine for the 300 wby mag cartridge, the Bell and Carlson is a nice stock but I still got some annoying flexing with it even after I did some additional bedding around the receiver. Sometimes I got MOA and a bit under--sometimes not. The action and barrel parts of the gun are very well made, so I don't think much needs to be done there. I've noticed most of the flexing in the stock occurs at about halfway point on down the foreend from the lug.

I finally said the heck with it today and drilled out a straight channel down the middle of the forend and filled it with devcon. I ran into a couple of small aluminum cross pillars but not much else.

Hope to see if it helps (or if I ruined it) as soon as I can.

 

[stagpanther]

After curing over night the stock's foreend is solid as rock even when resting on the forestock end. Real curious to see how [if] that changes the shooting characteristics. I'll be shooting 210 gr Berger hunting hybrids.

 

[stagpanther]

Went out for a test of 5 shots off the hood of my truck at 166 yds, unfortunately it was in the middle of a snow squall so I can't say for sure whether or not there has been any notable improvement, 4 of the 5 shots were around MOA but one flew wide of that. Other than a shift in POI it doesn't seem like a huge difference but I will have to wait a while for less stormy weather to give it another go off of a bench. An annoying feature of the stock is the sharp angle along the bottom--seems to encourage it to roll to the side.