Free floated rifles
- Thread starter Ldoll
- Start date
You should be able to take a new dollar bill, insert it between the stock and the barrel such that you can grab each end of the bill, and slide it from the foreend down to the receiver.
Barrel movement? I suspect it to be somewhat circular if you consider the effect of the rifling. This is a question for our real experts like Gale McMillan.
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Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt
Barrel movement? I suspect it to be somewhat circular if you consider the effect of the rifling. This is a question for our real experts like Gale McMillan.
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Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt
Gale McMillan
Member In Memoriam
So that the weight of the rifle can't bend the stock enough to touch the barrel. If you are not using a sling you don't need to worry too much about side warpage as long as you open it up at least the thickness of a nickel and keep an eye on it.
Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
As was said, with more space than the thickness of a dollar bill, no problems.
The issue is not the barrel moving when you shoot. It is the barrel and wood heating at different rates if they are touching which causes problems. The slight enlargement of the steel during a string of shots could cause changing pressures from the wood, and it's the changing pressures which cause the groups to enlarge.
The goal of a proper fit of stock and steel is that everything be the same from shot to shot, other than temperature.
The typical deer hunter shoots once from a cold barrel. Bedding is hardly an issue. A prairie dog hunter shoots a smaller target, and lots of them in a relatively short time. Bedding is thus critical to success, with a warmed-up barrel.
For target shooters, it's even more critical, since a string of ten shots might be fired in a relatively short time--the barrel is even hotter at the end of the string.
Hope this helps as to the "why".
, Art
The issue is not the barrel moving when you shoot. It is the barrel and wood heating at different rates if they are touching which causes problems. The slight enlargement of the steel during a string of shots could cause changing pressures from the wood, and it's the changing pressures which cause the groups to enlarge.
The goal of a proper fit of stock and steel is that everything be the same from shot to shot, other than temperature.
The typical deer hunter shoots once from a cold barrel. Bedding is hardly an issue. A prairie dog hunter shoots a smaller target, and lots of them in a relatively short time. Bedding is thus critical to success, with a warmed-up barrel.
For target shooters, it's even more critical, since a string of ten shots might be fired in a relatively short time--the barrel is even hotter at the end of the string.
Hope this helps as to the "why".
, Art