Which way gets better accuracy and consistency? Fully bedded in wood with some up-pressure on the barrel at the tip of the stock, or free floating barrel?

Please state which you'd prefer on a plain'a game African rifle and the reason for your choice. Thanks

yes..
they both work.

most of mine are bedded the full length of the stock [tang to forearm] and are hunting rifles.
I do it that way because they are going to get used and dinged and bumped and rained on and snowed on and dropped and banged into stuff.

somehow they manage to shoot groups under an inch day in and day out.

Varmint rifles I just bed from about an inch in front of the recoil lug back.

lighter weight barreled rifles seem to like some up pressure at the tip so I usually start with a glob under the tip and again under the recoil lug.

Brian564, If you have a very stable wooden stock, you may have good success with full bedding. But, I’d likely float....just in case of some stock movement. With a synthetic ( in my case a McMillan)... I want full length. My thought, though possibly flawed... is “do not” leave any gap ( between barrel and stock). Any debris (particularly water potentially freezing), can create a pressure point, changing barrel harmonics, thereby possibly changing point of impact and/or group size!
My go to rifle (for “All” of my hunting) is a .375 AI which is capable of sub 2” groups at 300 yards....when I’m having a “very” good day. It’s full length bedded for the above reasons...it’s never let me down since spring of 1990. If there is a miss or a poor shot....it’s the shooter not the rifle! memtb

In my opinion start by free floating and shoot it see what you think.
If that's not what it likes then give it some fore end contact.
I like doing it in that order because it's harder to do in reverse.
What works for one rifle is not a cure all for all rifles.

If the barrel is a good barrel and the action properly bedded then free floating will win the day. For actions like Rem 700 and the M70 the barrel should be fully free floated and because of the position of the front action screw being in the centre of the bedding platform. Actions like Howa/Vanguard and others where the front action screw is right at the front of the action then about half inch to inch of barrel just in front of the action.

If the barrel is not real good and action bedding not real good then free floating will often be not so good and also might be very fussy with loads.

Most of my rifles are free floated and shoot very well. I have one that is full length bedded without upward pressure. It to shoots very well and has traveled across the country many times and held zero.

Start free floated and adjust as needed from there.

It largely depends on the individual barrel, and to a lesser extent on the design of the action and how solidly it can be bedded to the stock.

Slender barrels for light weight sporters tend to do much better when properly bedded, typically with some up-pressure near the end of the forearm.

Heavier barrels do fine either way if the action bedding is properly done, but floating can make up for imperfect bedding otherwise.

Although it is currently fashionable to believe that floated barrels offer better accuracy historical data doesn't always agree. For example, Winchester went to a floated barrel in their "new" Model 70 in 1964, but that rifle was never as accurate on average as the competing Remington Model 700 which was bedded with up pressure.

I have never specified to my gunsmiths how to bed custom rifles meant for long range accuracy, but they all come back floated.

I did have a Rem700 ADL I full length bedded in a Brown Prec stock and it shot pretty well.

I start with free floating...quicker and easier to do...if NOGO then I do a pad at the front of the forend with ~6-8 lbs pressure. One or the other will usually do the trick...if not full bed and hope.

Tin #1-3 contour barrels seem to do better with a pad and a stiff wood stock...heavier barrels do better by floating...but the ONLY way to know is to start somewhere and keep trying if that doesn't work...barrels and stocks are like people...some good, some not so good.

Good Hunting

I start with bedding a gun TIGHT ALL THE WAY, test it, if not, then I go to THREE POINT BED, TEST IT, IF NOT I WILL THEN FREE FLOAT IT..

Why do I do this you ask? Simply because a rifle is an enity unto itself an may only shoot well with one of the three methods listed above and by using my method I can take wood out but I cannot put wood back in and if you start with free float and it doesn't shoot yer screwed!

There are a lot of folks out there that just contend all guns shoot best free floated, that's BS but its easier to free float one and let the customer worry about getting it to shoot, at which point if its not shooting up to snuff ya have to fill it with glass!

What nature's forgotten we fix with AcraGlas

All of my timber stocked rifles are pillar bedded FIRST. Then I will float shooting groups before and after. If it groups well floated, then I bed the whole action and leave a 1”-2” pad under the knox form of the barrel chamber.
Varmint/target rifles have the pad negated and are floated from the recoil lug forward.

Cheers.

99 percent of my bolt action rifles are free floated.

For wood stocked hunting rifles I prefer to float being more concerned with the point of impact not changing during the hunting season. Our deer season runs from November to early February so that's a lot of opportunity for the wood to move a little. I once read that a good barrel will shoot as well or better floated while a not so good barrel will shoot better with some forend pressure and that is why the manufactures put the pressure points at the front of the stock. But as we all know you can read anything!

As posted, it's hard to put wood back but if you've got a rifle with the factory pressure point near the front of the stock, you can make some washers using biz cards and put them between the stock and the action. In effect, you are free floating the barrel (do the dollar bill trick) I assume that after a clean up, you have shot then rifle for accuracy as it came from the factory. If the factory set up nor the free float doesn't give you what you want, try putting a biz card between the pressure point and the barrel and see how that does.

Wasbeeman,
That is correct, and its a good way to determine how your gun chooses to shoot and how it needs to be bedded.

As to wood moving,that's and old wives tail, based on cheap factory wood that never cured properly nor was laid out properly to start with, along with some other problems like poor inletting,those big gaps in the barrel channel do serve as a water storage in case you get thirsty..

Properly cured wood, laid out properly, and finished properly with some care each evening is as stable as fiberglass, and I have guns that have hunted all manor of weather and hardships without movement for over 45 years..Idaho is a testing ground for wet weather hunting of elk..I have an old pre 64 30-06 that the checkering is all but gone, worn off, looks like drift wood on a rifle that one might thing was never blued or the metal might be mistaken as stainless steel, This old gun has never been anything but a factory job and the wood never has moved nor has the POI changed since Ive owned it..Got lucky on that one, and it will never change now, its cured...

As to plastic stocks being indestructible, I saw one melt from being put behind the tent stove, another moved from heat in the trunk of a car, another from being left over lunch on the top of a pickup hood in extreme heat, They are vunerable, they are made by man, and yes Ive seen SS rust from neglect..

I only use rust blue and good European or some old world Walnut, not California cork wood on custom guns..I keep an eye on my factory Ruger African in .338, and my factory wood guns at least for several years as if they are going to move it doesn't take long to let you know, or so it seems to me.

No contradiction here just another point of view.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:

... No contradiction here just another point of view.

And very well stated, too.

Ray, experience like that is more reason you should write a book. It could include observations and even chapters on equipment advice.

Old wives tales my arse !
It because old wives had no way of knowing what their guns were doing !

The whole gun and its parts individually move and they move independently and in synergy with each other in a 3 dimensional frame.

The total motion construct can be broken down into modes and ultra high speed photography techniques have been employed to demonstrate the multiple modes in real time. There are multiple modes, as many as 8 moments have been described. There are apparently more.

The most commonly mode of interest is that what is referred to as barrel "twirlings" which are a assymetric figure 8 like pattern described by the muzzle position relative to the line of aim at the time of the initiation of the internal ballistics cycle. ie for each shot the muzzle points in a direction that falls in a described area that is different from the line of barrel position when the primer was struck. The value of this deviation from line of aim is stochastic within a upper and lower value limit.

by bedding or free floating the gunmaker can influence the magnitude of this randomness.


Other modes can be a up and down wave form bending of the barrel, elongation and shortening of the barrel, Even the scope and actions shows bending moments. Shooting from rests influence these moments.

Another dissenting opionion! I had a Model 88 Winchester (while living in Louisiana many years ago), which would from summer to wet winter hunting, warp,shift,draw, or whatever you choose to call it....easily 1/8”. This huge amount of “warpage” was easily seen as I continued to open the barrel channel to eliminate the contact. When finished....you could have “dropped” a heavy, varmint weight barrel in the channel (open ditch)!
No doubt, a better wood, properly dried wood would have “probably” helped or eliminated the issue. But, once synthetics came upon the scene...they’re my “only” option.

I honestly love a beautiful wood stocked firearm....to look at! I take my hunting (as little as I do) pretty serious...the “pretty” stuff will stay home. The synthetic “stuff” goes hunting! memtb

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
99 percent of my bolt action rifles are free floated.

100% of mine are free floated. That has proven to be the most accurate for me. I have about 20 of them.

I had a 6mm-284 that would not shoot free-floated, but shot half-inch groups with a little forend pressure. Rifles differ.

I'm no expert, but I've had rifles that were full-bedded, free floated, and bedded with pressure at the tip of the fore end.

All types have shot well, but some didn't.

All of those that didn't were originally non-free floated rifles.

To fix those (to the extent that changing the bedding fixed anything), I free floated them.

I stopped trying to figure out why this happens!

Alf,
Congratulations you have once again baffaled me with bull shit!! I see your off your meds!

quote:

Originally posted by Lamar:
yes..
they both work.

Fully agree....however I will make my first attempt a free floated barrel.

I put three wraps of electrical tape on the barrel and then glass bed full length. When the barreled action is removed the next day from the acraglass, there should be (at least theoretically) a gap between the barrel (tape removed) and the for end of the stock about .018 inches. That said I still at times am forced to take some 80 grit paper and a rounded block of wood and sand out more accraglass.

Years ago Remington intentionally put a "Bump" at the tip of the for end to keep some upward pressure on the barrel.....and many Remingtons shot very well.....That said, I have sanded that bump out and improved accuracy on occasion.

We go with what works.....but free floating is my first choice.

No tip up pressure.

three point bedding sometimes works well on feather weight barrels that are waspy by nature.

I have no problem with free float, only with those that are so closed minded that they think its the only way...Most folks that free float leave a gap large enough to bed a cockroach in..Most can't nor have ever inletted a wood stock..For those that freefloat, I suggest you have contact with knife edges at barrel line and only free floated enough to blow smoke thru underneath, saves rusted out barrels and dampness under the barrel. With any gun Im going to listen to the gun, not the homeboy on the internet when it comes to inletting, the gun will tell me how its going to shoot everytime..

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
three point bedding sometimes works well on feather weight barrels that are waspy by nature.

I have no problem with free float, only with those that are so closed minded that they think its the only way...Most folks that free float leave a gap large enough to bed a cockroach in..Most can't nor have ever inletted a wood stock..For those that freefloat, I suggest you have contact with knife edges at barrel line and only free floated enough to blow smoke thru underneath, saves rusted out barrels and dampness under the barrel. With any gun Im going to listen to the gun, not the homeboy on the internet when it comes to inletting, the gun will tell me how its going to shoot everytime..

Can't make it much plainer than that

quote:

Years ago Remington intentionally put a "Bump" at the tip of the for end to keep some upward pressure on the barrel.....and many Remingtons shot very well.....That said, I have sanded that bump out and improved accuracy on occasion.

I brought a 700 that had so much pressure on the for end that one could see the barrel move up when you tighten the action screws.

Wouldn't keep 5 rounds on a 8x11 after free floating it shot into 2 inches after bedding the action and first 3 inches in front of the action 3/4 of and inch.

Ray
Alf was explaining why you are right.
Happy shooting!

I never can figure that out!! He is a tricky bugger! Alf is well versed and his savy of the English language is fantastic, as is his knowledge of guns and hunting, but sometimes this old Texas cowboy just isn't smart enough figure out what he is trying to say, I mean he uses his wifes perfume to lubricate his cases when he reloads, and stuff like that..

Well Ray I tell my wife and s few others, "there are a few advantages to being a Cowboy Gunfighter but darned few and fewer every day." But I tell myself that if the demand for cowboy gun fighters comes back; I'll have the market cornered.

Cowboy up and get after'em...