Not sure what forum to put this in but figured that since it about shooting my reloads......

Have not owned a wood stocked rifle since 1979/80. Suddenly, I find myself with two; a Cooper 57m in 22LR with a very nice piece of French walnut
and a beautiful pre-64 m70 in 257 Roberts.
It sits in a gorgeous piece of California English walnut which has FULL contact bedding in the barrel channel. Shot it for the first time this am and some groups seemed to exhibit some vertical/horizontal stringing of the 4-shot groups. Time wise, I did space the groups by about 5-10 min between but the 4-shots were fired in quick succession.

Wanted to get opinions on how folks shoot their wood stocked rifles that have full contact barrel channels. Temps this am @ 6am started @ 64 deg F and hit 75 3-hours later.

Alan

Short answer, I don't shoot full-contact rifles because of the changing point of impact from changing weather conditions and shooter positions. Weather/humidity conditions in your part of the country may not require free-floating; if this is so, then IIWY I'd shoot 3-shot groups as fast as I could take a GOOD aim. AND I'd shoot the rifle again on another day, and still another day, to check on possible POI changes. AND, I'd shoot it from various positions to see if the POI changed from the different forearm pressures.

If you can't kill it in 3 shots then 30 shots ain't gonna help. And if you zeroed it on the bench instead of from a field position, you may be shocked to find out just how far off your POI COULD be.

With the pre-64 M70 it's frequently A Good Thing to experiment with screw tensions. The front and rear action screws should be as tight as you can get them but the middle action screw and the forearm screw can be installed with various tensions and then adjusted via shooting comparisons to obtain the best accuracy. You probably don't have a barrel screw on that custom though.

IMO any rifle will always benefit from action pillar bedding regardless of barrel bedding. JMO.
Regards, Joe

I have one full contact bedded rifle but have had a few through the years. The rifle, a pre 64 Win 70 in 375 H&H just does fine accuracy-wise as did the others in a hunting rifle role; that is it puts 3 shots into well under an inch.

I have a bunch of pre 64 Win 70's in their original stock and inletting. I am not 100% sure but think these are full contact, although not bedded. They shoot just fine.