Free Floating/Glass Bedding a Barrel
- Thread starter Flashman
- Start date
"why don't all gun manufactureres free float barrels."
Price.
"What exactly is involved to do this;"
Simply put ...
Remove all stock contact with the barrel forward of the action. Enough so you can just slide a folded over dollar bill (doesn't matter what denomination
) but not much more. Remove enough wood surounding the recoil lug & rear action screw to give the bedding compound a firm grip & to provide for a solid surface. Use a Dremmel, etc & a burr bit. Preferrably get an experienced buddy to walk you thru the first time. You can screw it up, but after assisting, you'll have it down.
"why then, must the stock be glass bedded as well?"
Wood varies - the bedding compound doesn't (as much). You want to have as an unvarying condition (bedding) for your action/bbl for each shot.
Free-floating does away with any barrel contact with the stock - eliminates as strange bbl harmonics, etc. & usually helps to improve accuracy just by eliminating one variable.
Price.
"What exactly is involved to do this;"
Simply put ...
Remove all stock contact with the barrel forward of the action. Enough so you can just slide a folded over dollar bill (doesn't matter what denomination
) but not much more. Remove enough wood surounding the recoil lug & rear action screw to give the bedding compound a firm grip & to provide for a solid surface. Use a Dremmel, etc & a burr bit. Preferrably get an experienced buddy to walk you thru the first time. You can screw it up, but after assisting, you'll have it down."why then, must the stock be glass bedded as well?"
Wood varies - the bedding compound doesn't (as much). You want to have as an unvarying condition (bedding) for your action/bbl for each shot.
Free-floating does away with any barrel contact with the stock - eliminates as strange bbl harmonics, etc. & usually helps to improve accuracy just by eliminating one variable.
Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
On the free-floating, I would add one idea to the free-floating. I have free-floated as he described, and then shimmed the fore-end tip with kitchen wax paper--about 1/2" wide--such that insertion of the shim just barely requires pulling the fore-end away from the barrel. Maybe a five-pound pull...Half-a-dozen rapid shots melts the wax enough that it sticks in place.
This seems to act as a shock absorber on a car, damping out vibrations. I've done this on--I lose track--fifteen or twenty different rifles, and it has always made an improvement over factory bedding. Always.
Cheap, too.
Art
This seems to act as a shock absorber on a car, damping out vibrations. I've done this on--I lose track--fifteen or twenty different rifles, and it has always made an improvement over factory bedding. Always.
Cheap, too.
Art
Gale McMillan
Member In Memoriam
Quality barrels will perform better free floated but poor quality barrel will perform better with a 3 to 5 lb fore end pressure. The reason for this is that poor quality production barrels are not stress relieved and will tend to walk as it heats up. By putting fore end pressure you are actually bending the barrel upward in an ark so that as the bullet starts down the bore it is trying to straighten out the gentle bow induced by fore end pressure and it holds the barrel against that force. This causes the bullet to exit at the same vibration point shot to shot even though there may be a velocity spread. It is best to bed the rifle with free floated barrel as it is easy to bed the barrel with fore end pressure should it not shoot free floated. Just hold the stock in a vice and hang a 5 lb weight to the front swivel and put bedding material in place in the fore end tip and let set up. This means that free floating is not a panacea and does not always help. Some do and some don't This is why all factory barrels are generally bedded with fore end pressure