What are the pros and con of full length bedding of the action and barrell of my 1970's vintage Styer Mannlicher with a full length stock. I'm trying to get an improvement in accuracy and the local gunsmith recommended bedding but he doesn't have any experience with
full length stocks. Thanks, Chip

I cannot tell you what the right thing to do is.....I can tell you what I'd do.....wrap the barrel with two layers of electrical tape and glass bed the barrel full length. After the epoxy has cured remove the tape from the barrel and the barrel should be nearly perfectly floated. Some minor touch up might be called for but I'd still attempt to free float the barrel.

I have had several Mannlicher-schoenauers and other rifles with bedding from tang to tip, with barrels as long as 24 inches. The were very accurate.

The secret to accuracy with a full length stock is to have even pressure, either using perfect inletting or with bedding compound.

just what vapodog said

Keep in mind its easy to take material out but hard as hell to put it back....

I would bed it tight (for manlichers) from the tang to the end of the forend....try it

If that doesn't work then I would scrape out the material from about two inches in front of the action to about an inch from the metal cap..Try it

If that does not work, chances are you can mess around with different pressure in the forend but in fact you probably have a bad barrel, but I don't know what you consider exceptable accuracy, you may have unreasonable expectations for reading all the posts on AR wherein everyones rifle including mine shoot into 1 inch groups!

Vapodog,
How are you going to freefloat a Manlicher that has a metal cap on the end of the stock, you can almost do it but that cap needs to be making barrel contact on a Manlicher as opposed to rattling around on the tip of the barrel...

IMO a manlicher needs to be tight all the way as free floating a skinny piece of wood is asking for a big time warp, thus the problem with manlichers. Bedded tight in glass stabilizes both the barrel and the wood...

Paul Dressel told me his method on full length stocks. He uses a 1/2 or 3/9" ball end mill and makes a series of cuts alon the bottom of the stock in line with the barrel. There is a separation of only 1/8" or so and they look like a string of sausages all in a line. He cuts to only within 1/4" of the bottom of the stock (holes are not a good thing). He said they shoot best that way. What you end up with is basically two pieces of wood that are connected by thin wood. If one side wants to bend, it has lost a lot of the combined strenght of the opposite piece. At least that is Pauls method and theory and he said it does work. You can generally take what he says to the bank.

I have a CZ527FS in .22 Hornet that has its barrel floated from the factory. The barrel is only 20" long but is quite accurate. The end cap is of sufficient diameter that it doesn't contact the barrel. So far it hasn't warped one way or the other, but I refinished this stock and made sure the barrel channel was well sealed.

Thanks for the help. I'm going to bed the barrell and action full lenght. Chip