To float or not to float

"Float the barrel and bed the action."


Correction. BED THE ACTION and then....and ONLY then, float the barrel. Free-floating a barrel will ALWAYS reduce accuracy, unless the action is rock-solid. Bedding the action is far more important, anyway.

Many people make the mistake of assuming that heat-induced accuracy problems are always due to barrel contact. Often, they are actually due to poor action fit (and cumulative action movement in the stock - a little from each shot).

Even then, there are no guarantees. Many rifles with light sporter barrels do not improve with free floating, but work better with pressure pads in the forend.

It's better to test both ways - but ALWAYS bed the action FIRST.
 
Yes^^ I also have noticed issues that were barrel related. When it heats up and strings, then settles down back to the first POI when the barrel cools down. This would indicate barrel issues, and not poor action bedding.
 
Stock advice...

Before tinkering with the bedding on your rifle, shoot a lot of different loads. You might just find one that gives you what you want, all by itself.
 
Hey wardbirdlover, what caliber is your MKII?? Do you handload? Trigger work?
NHSHOOTER
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.300 Win Mag. Here are some other threads about it.... and John is my good buddy! We did our Rugers (Boyds) at the same time. This rifle shoots the cheapest factory loads into (sometimes) one hole! I sold all my handloading stuff after I got this 20 years ago. And I did put a lighter trigger spring in it.


http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=484742

http://www.erniethegunsmith.com/catalog/i22.html
 
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To float or not to float... depends on what you plan on doing with your rifle. If it's for deer hunting, as are most 7mm-08, then I'd leave well enough alone... unless the deer you hunt are extremely far off or extremely tiny.
 
coyota1, nobody shoots 1 MOA groups offhand; at any range. But a good shot can shoot 10 MOA offhand and tell if their rifle will shoot 1 MOA (or better) groups at 100 yards; often at 200 yards, too.
 
wpsdlrg, top level competitors have been free floating barrels in stocks with the receiver section factory routed without a perfect fit decades before epoxy bedding was even experimented with. How else did high power match rifles shoot 1 MOA at 600 yards with arsenal match ammo in the 1920's and 1930's; no epoxy bedding was around back then. They's shoot inside 1/3 MOA at 100 yards so built.

Remington's 40X centerfire match rifle stocks were factory routed then the barreled action bolted in and the barrel was free floating from the get go. They didn't ship unless they shot 1/4 MOA at 100 yards. Even the first benchrest rifles' receivers in wood stocks with the barrel free floated as the receiver was "lamp blacked" to a perfect fit shot 1/4 MOA at 100 yards.

Anschutz .22 rimfire Olympic rifles had their barreled actions dropped into factory routed stocks without any special fitting whatsoever other than a steel bar to locate the front to back position of the receiver in the stock and serve as a recoil shoulder. The barrel was free floating in the fore end. They won gold medals and set records without any epoxy bedding.

Since the 1950's when epoxy bedding first came about, the most accurate rifles have had the fore end barrel channel relieved for clearance then O rings or tape wrapped around the barrel to position it clear of the channel all the way around while the receiver set in a puddle of epoxy about 1/10th inch thick around it. So, both bedding and barrel free floating was done all in the same step.
 
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Bart B, I know that free floating a good barrel is the way to go. My sporter barrels probably are not the quality of heavy match barrels, and react unevenly to heat. Now even off hand shooting I m holding the forend in place of a benchrest sandbag, or rest. I have made many accurate off hand kills with my rifles that are fully bedded, and my POI stays the same.
 
Bart 95% or the rifles I have ever had I free floated if they did not arrive that way. The two mentioned above that were full length bedded did maintain zero from the only two positions I ever shoot them from. I will also add they were both synthetic stocks. Those being rest under the front foreend and my hand on the front fore end. I dont use the sling to shoot while hunting. I find me a small tree and pull the stock firm against it. I 100% agree with you that free floating is the way to go in most circumstances, but these particular two crappy barrels did not like it too well.
 
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One thing to consider is, if an epoxy bedded receiver with the barrel free floating doesn't shoot as accurate as with the barrel bedded, there's something wrong with the receiver bedding or how it's held to the stock that's the problem. There are more wrong ways to epoxy bed and fit a receiver than right ways.
 
This whole thread got me to thinking. I asked a custom rifle builder I know about full length bedding due to a problem I am having with another rifle. He said in theory it does not work, but pretty regularly he has to bed pressure points into the light weight rifles he builds to make them shoot. I was looking at one company's bedding instruction and they said to free float while bedding but keep in mind that you may have to go back and bed a pressure point to achieve desired accuracy. I dont know why it works, but on some thin barreled rifles, full length bedding or bedding an intentional pressure point works.
 
I found this quote from Gale Mcmillan in another thread on here.
"Posted: 01-08-2000 07:08 PM
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."
 
Gale McMillian's often quoted theory:
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.
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That's an easy myth to shoot holes through.

First off, there's no guarantee that a poor quality, non-stress reliefed barrel will always bend in the vertical axis when it heats up. Nor is the direction always going to be either up or down; it will be in the direction the stresses bend it.

Second, any fore arm pressure on the barrel will change with how the rifle's held by the shooter. From a fixed amount and axis when the rifle shot offhand where it's constant from shot to shot to any position that [puts pressure on the fore end changing the force axis and direction. That'll change how the barrel wiggles while the bullet goes through it and the bullet will exit at different directions depending on that external force and its axis.

Third, bullets leaving at different muzzle velocities exit the barrel at different angles. The bore axis at the muzzle's going through a narrow range of angles all the time as soon as it's fired. And the barrel will wiggle and whip at the same frequency for every shot fired regardless of how long it takes for the bullet to go from case neck to out the muzzle and from very cold to very hot. Adding a variable pressure to any point on the barrel will change the direction and amplitude the muzzle axis wiggles at but its frequencies will stay the same.

Gale McMillian claimed the Rem 700 box magazine recevers are stiffer than the Win 70 ones. People have bet him thousands to prove it but he never accepted the challenge. Folks who've measured how much each receiver bends from a given force know which one's stiffest.
 
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Bart, Gale was a legendary rifle builder. The man built many world record holding rifles. He might not be right about everything, but I know pressure points make some rifles shoot better. I cant tell you why, but I know it does. A tupperware stock and a $1200 stock seem to follow a different set of rules. Some stocks have so much flex in them it really does not matter how well you bed them you are not going to realize the results of a good bedding job. Now that I really think it through, both rifles I full length bedded with great results were rifles with junk stocks. One of them was Savage's stock with those stupid plastic molded pillars. The other was a Remington mountain rifle with a composite stock that is the softest, most flexible stock I have ever seen in my life. Both liked full length bedding. Why? Don't know, but it worked.
 
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Ask Remington why they put a pressure point in their stock; fore end I assume. I have no idea what their reason was/is. May well have been the same reason they put adjustable pressure points in their original 40X match rifles at their stock's front end at 45 degrees to the barrel but that was a disaster and smart folks backed those adustments out all the way totally free floating the barrels and they shot more accurate.

It doesn't matter how much flex there is in a stock; barrel either for that matter. As long as it's repeatable for every shot, that's all that's important for accuracy. More often than not, that pressure point in the fore end tends to counteract a poor receiver fit to the stock and rifles do sometimes shoot better that way. It's cheaper than epoxy bedding the receiver, but not as good accuracy wise.
 
In my mind, the problem with flex is that nothing is going to be repeatable. We both agree that a quality stock, quality action, and quality barrell; are at their best free floated. Lesser quality components seem to follow their own set of rules at times.
 
Revolver, I will remember that the next time I am wasting time and money bedding my 1000 yard rifles. You sure you are not talking about a shot gun?:)
 
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