Free-float the barrel of a Weatherby Vanguard 2

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Hello,

I'm not trying a direct comparison. I'm sorry if that's how I came off.

I love to play with theory. My dad is an engineer, and so I was raised by an engineer. My mom is an SLP who earned her teacher's license and has worked as a speech teacher in public schools for most of my life, so I was raised by a teacher.

The combination engineer/teacher team who raised me imparted a thirst for knowledge, a desire to question everything, and to form theories and find the similarities in seemingly different items.

Earlier I was speaking theory, what should work in a world of perfect circles.

In reality, my rifles have floated barrels, or, in the case of a Gew88, a sleeved barrel in which the sleeve does make contact at the muzzle.

The Mosin has a pressure point near the end of the barrel, with about 5lbs of upward pressure. The rest of its 29" length is floated. It should be noted that the Mosin barrel is tapered, albeit slightly.

Though I don't have one, the Lee-Enfield did use a spring-loaded pressure point in at least some models to improve precision.

The Gew88 is nice as is, so I left it alone. 1.2" at 100 or 110 yards with handloads makes me happy with a 120 year old rifle.

The Mosin needed help, so I did a bit more inletting to the beech stock and shimmed the action, gave the barrel a pressure point, and improved the trigger to a two-stage.

The Savage MkII BTVS was in sad shape from the factory. The action and barrel were not straight in the stock and the barrel was touching; after I got done with it, the heavy barrel floats and is very sub-MOA with correct ammo.

I love theory, but that's in a world of perfect circles.

In reality, I use what works.

If the Weatherby was designed for use with a non-floated barrel, heck, I'd leave it be if the barrel is bedded well in the stock.

If precision suffers after a few shots, I'd float it. This goes doubly for hunting rifles in which repeatability could be the difference between a hit or miss and there's no cool-down period.

Just some random thoughts on the subject, I guess.

Regards,

Josh
 
Josh, the Brit's SMLE had a pretty whippy barrel due to its bolt's locking lug arrangement as well as receiver design. But it shot Cordite charged .303 ammo with a big muzzle velocity spread very accurate at long range. It was "the" rifle to beat in long range competition for decades. But Mauser 98 barreled actions in conventional stocks shot that same ammo more accurate at medium ranges, so their competitors had one of each type. Here's an engineering report of that rifle's ability to compensate for muzzle velocity spread at long range:

https://archive.org/details/philtrans05900167

In the "Read The Book" window, click on the "PDF" link to get the document.

I shot rifle matches with the stockmaker who designed Weatherby's early commercial stocks back in the 1950's. He also stocked and bedded a large number of match winning, record setting shoulder fired rifles in his day. He tried to convince Roy Weatherby to free float his sporter weight barrels, even proved to him that normal handling of the rifle's fore end could change bullet impact. But Mr. Weatherby would have none of that; he wanted a "perfect" fit of the fore end's barrel channel to the slender barrel and that was the rule.

Winchester free-floated some of their sporter barrels in sporter stocks some years ago, but sales of them were poor 'cause customers didin't like that 1/16th inch gap between the barrel and wood in the barrel channel. They quit that great idea.
 
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I honestly do not know how many MarkV Weatherbys I have. I think 8, but I would have to check. I have 2 v1's and 1 V2. None of them are floated. They are the only non-safe queen bolt rifles I own that I have not floated. ALL of them shoot way too good to mess with. All the Mark V's are Japanese made. The stocks fit so perfectly its almost as if they are full length bedded. The Vanguards all have pressure points. All of them are scary accurate for what they are.
 
Reynolds, if you test your Weatherby's for accuracy shooting them the same way each time from a bench, they may well produce repeatable, good results each time. If you're a good enough marksman to shoot a rifle from any field position without a rest, with and without a sling, you may be able to see the difference in accuracy between barrels free floated and those with pressure points. Good marksmen can easily discriminate a 1/3 MOA difference. A good marksman can sight in accurate rifles and ammo from offhand standing on their hind legs, and not using a sling, with one shot at 100 yards.
 
Bart, I am good shooting from a bench rest. I am good shooting from prone position using a bag. I am not worth a flip shooting standing, kneeling, or prone with a sling.
Bart, I am sure you are right about free floating, BUT free floating these rifle may open up a can of worms I dont care to deal with in hunting rifles that are already 1/2 to 3/4 MOA rifles. I have floated one WBY Mark V for one of my friends. It immediately went from being a tack driver to a pile of crud. I then had to put pillars in and glass bed the rifle. After that, it shot as good as it did pre-floated. I guess what I am saying is that for me, the Wby's are good enough out of the box. To help them out a little, I very welll might end up having to do a whole lot.
 
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The "blood groove" in the spine of a knife adds rigidity without making the knife heavier
Click to expand...
It does nothing of the kind. What it actually does is sell knives to folks who think blood grooves (the correct term is fuller) are way cool because some military knives/bayonets have them.
 
Reynolds, it's my experience that free floating a barrel that ends up shooting less accuracy is caused by poor bedding around the receiver in the first place. Epoxy bedding the receiver made all 6 rifles I treated this way shoot groups about half the size of what they did before.

This is one reason why some rifles shoot off rests atop a bench more accurate with a pressure point under the barrel at the fore end's tip.
 
But for non-competition rifles that are not going to be shot at extreme long range, sometimes its just not worth the aggravation of doing a good bedding job.
 
Bart: In my recent post discussing bedded barrels and free-floated actions, I wasn't referring to a barrel's heat that may not change inherent accuracy, but by bedding a tapered barrel in a stock, heating elongates a tube, so if tapered, and tightly bedded, there may be a tendency for the barrel to move in the bedding, even slightly. There's also a tendency for stock pressure from slings or various rests to affect barrel vibrations and POI.

My point is that free-floating sporter barrels and properly bedding the receiver minimizes POI variations. A rifle that shoots half-inch groups, but exhibits 2" POI variations is not as good a situation for a hunting rifle as a rifle that shoots 1" groups at the same POI year-round (atmospheric and other variations not considered).
 
Picher, heat expands barrel steel about .000006" per degree in every direction. So they get larger in diameter as well as longer.

Only real proof I've seen that their enlargement in the chamber area was with a few match rifles tested at 1000 yards. With a bedding pad under the barrel a few inches in front of the receiver, they all had vertical shot stringing as the barrels heated up. Shortening the pad back an inch reduced the stringing. Totallt removing it resulted in no vertical shot stringing. Others have reported the same thing with rifles, ammo and and abilities to see the difference.

I'm not aware of any significant difference in pillar or conventional receiver bedding as long as the stock screws are torqued to the same amount for each day's shooting. Accuracy's not significantly changed since the '60's when conventional epoxy bedding was all there was then after soft-cored synthetic stocks came out and they needed metal pillars to make the shoot as accurate as conventional epoxy bedding in wood stocks. The best of them are shot under 1/3 MOA at short range, under 1/2 MOA at medium and under 3/4 MOA at long range when properly tested.
 
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Due to the difference in barrel wall thickness to the length of barrel within the forend, the barrel lengthens about 20 times as much as the diameter increases, so with a tapered barrel, tightly bedded into a receiver, it has a tendency to rise as it's forced into the "cone" shaped bedding at the barrel taper.

Seasonal wood swelling, shrinkage and warpage has a much greater effect on POI and grouping of tightly-bedded barrels and those having pressure points, than free-floated ones. That fact was noted by Col. Townsend Whelen in his book "Small Arms Design and Ballistics" -1949.

I epoxy-bedded my first rifle, a 30-06, Savage 110, around 1961 (at age 17). The barrel was free-floated from about an inch ahead of the action. The stock was a semi-inletted Bishop blank, the exterior of which I configured closely to the shape of Weatherby MK5s, using only files and sandpaper. The bedding material was marine epoxy. The rifle shot sub-MOA with handloads and a K2.5x Weaver.
 
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Picher, many are well aware of wood dimensional changes with temperature and humidity. Which is why so many competitors retorqued their stock screws before each day's shooting. Even Garands were best left stored with their trigger guard half open to relieve the pressure on the receiver and trigger group flats to maintain accuracy each day.

But synthetic stocks had their days of woe, too, when they first came out. 'Twas first noticed on M14's and M1A's layed in the sun atop a shooting stool for a while. The heat on one side expanded it enough to bend the fore end so the stock ferrule pushed to one side. That put extra pressure on the barrel band at that point and zero's changed and sometimes accuracy, too. Bolt guns with free floating barrels in synthetic stocks never had that problem. It tood several years of plastic chemistry changes before synthetic stocks stayed dimensionally stable within reasonable limits.
 
Interesting Bart. I was never into military target shooting and no very little about accurizing M1s, etc. The CMP sent notices recently that it's offering classes on M1, M1A accurizing. There seems to be quite a bit to it.
 
Old thread, but I thought I'd share my experiences with free-floating a Vanguard S2 in 30-06.

I purchased a synthetic S2 last year and was immediately unhappy with the groups. Two types of 150 grain ammo would string vertically into 2-3" patterns. I was firing fairly quickly, but even one attempt at complete cooling, waiting 10 minutes between shots, didn't help the spray. It's my first centerfire rifle, so while I was fairly certain the problem was not me, I couldn't be absolutely sure. This uncertainty kept me from invoking my 1-MOA warrantee with Weatherby. So...

Step 1: I bought a Bell and Carlson Medalist stock. I should have just screwed it on and shot a variety of ammo it as-is, but I had more ambitious plans. I sanded out the pressure points up front. When that still wouldn't float the barrel I added a washer under the recoil lug and bedded the lug area with epoxy. (didn't do the whole action because I'm new at this and didn't want to risk messing up the stock or my gun.) Went and shot it: groups even worse than before. BUT before I left the range I put some cardboard under the barrel and got a half-decent group out of Barnes 168-grain ammo. Two touching and a third about an inch away. More on that in a minute.

Step 2: I attempted to re-create the cardboard setup with something more solid. I chiseled out the epoxy and washer, then rebedded the lug down flush with the stock chassis. A day later I followed some directions I found online and added a pressure point back to the forend. I did this by applying a spot of epoxy and then weighing down the swing swivel while supporting the barrel on a sandbag. The result was fancy looking but the following trip to the range was another disaster. Groups were in the 2-3" range again. I had used 8 pounds of hanging pressure for the bedding -- was it too much? I guessed so.

Step 3: I chiseled and sanded out the pressure point. This was a little dicey, since it wasn't always clear where my epoxy ended and the stock's fiberglass began. I got a few tufts of fiberglass sticking out and ended up with a bedding area that looked like the surface of the moon, but don't think I did any real damage to the integrity of it. Since there was still some upward pressure (I couldn't get a dollar bill under the barrel) I figured I'd shoot it again and see what happened. But even with 8-10 minutes between shots, it wouldn't group.

*sigh* I had taken my OEM stock along to the range and was staring at it, about to give up on my fancy, $260 B&C. This saddened me, since I love the thicker pistol grip and hard-ringing feel of the B&C. But if I couldn't make it shoot... One last idea. I pulled off the stock. Recalling the cardboard shim from a few weeks back, I tore an inch square off the packaging of my ShootNC targets and covered the moonscape area, then tightened it down. Shot #1: 2.8 inches high. Shot #2... Where is it? Shot #3: 3.1 inches high. HAWT... DAMN.

The combo of Barnes 168 grain factory ammo and a cardboard shim under the barrel gave me a sub-half-inch group. I dialed the scope down .3 Mil and packed up the gun. (I had to be somewhere or I would have confirmed it.) Tore off the target to post on my shop wall.

I guess I'm hunting with cardboard under my barrel. :)

IF I HAD TO DO IT AGAIN: I probably would do the same thing, since I really wanted to try some of these things. But if you don't aren't eager for a project, be sure to shoot lots of different loads and see if you can avoid it. In any case, my gun seems to be evidence that a good stock and epoxy bedding of the recoil lug aren't always enough to make a free-floated sporter barrel shoot. And that's OK.

Edit: Obviously, the 168-grain ammo shot from my original stock might have been a sweet combo, too. But live and learn.
 
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Free floating vanguard

Hello been reading all of the threads. I have a vanguard 2 308. I properly broke the barrel in as per weatherby instructions. I got one good 1/2 Moa group. The rest are horrible. I used hornady custom ammo, along with black hills match and federal match. I put a bell and Carlson stock and bedded the lug. No joy.
 
Pools1,
Sorry to hear of your troubles. I have a few questions/tips that you may already be aware of, so apologies in advance.

-Check your scope mount and tighten if necessary.

-You mention different ammo brands but not the bullet weights. Definitely try different weights if you haven't already.

-At the range, be mindful of the barrel heating up. This is a skinny #2 barrel so you can't shoot it like a bench-rest gun and expect great results. Three shots followed by 10 minutes of cooling is the fastest I would go.

Good luck
WB
 
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