I'm sure it varies but any general rule of thumb as how tight to turn this screw? I just took out the rifle I bought to shoot and hoped to find a load that'd shoot an inch and half. I loaded up a few recipes that past rifles like and all four I shot beat the 1.5 moa so I was happy. But I had a lot of two shots touching with the third landing a inch or so out. I'm thinking some minor tweaking might solve this, any suggestions welcomed. Thanks.

I think the first question of how to adjust that screw was directed to the Dope Bag in the American Rifleman in 1936, the year the 70 came out. In the decades, indeed, generations since, the answer has been, whatever makes your particular rifle shoot the best !!! For my part, I just take the screw out and free float the barrel.

I play with it a bit. I just hate to remove wood, for a factory rifle the inletting is so much better than I've had before. I know not the most valid of reasons.

quote:

Originally posted by dempsey:
I'm sure it varies but any general rule of thumb as how tight to turn this screw? I just took out the rifle I bought to shoot and hoped to find a load that'd shoot an inch and half. I loaded up a few recipes that past rifles like and all four I shot beat the 1.5 moa so I was happy. But I had a lot of two shots touching with the third landing a inch or so out. I'm thinking some minor tweaking might solve this, any suggestions welcomed. Thanks.

I had a M70 .375 H&H Super Grade-it shot 1 MOA AFTER I removed this screw and put it away to accompany the rifle should I decide to sell it. I did NOT fool with the bedding on that rifle.....

Thanks, I'll certainly try that.

Every one i have had wanted at least some tension some more than others. Iwould back it out--shoot 3 if you arent happy turn it in a little shoot 3 and just keep going until you are happy. ross seyfield calls that tension screw the secret to pre-64s.

Dempsey,

When I was a much younger fellow -- before I could afford to buy a pre-64 Model 70 for myself -- I loaded for two pre-64s that my uncle and my cousin owned. I put hundereds of rounds through both guns. One was a 30-06 and the other was a 270 Win. I found that each rifle was very finiky on forearm screw tension depending on the particular load. In other words I could usually by trial and error "tune" the screw to a particular load, but change the load -- be it powder type/weight and/or bullet type/weight -- and you had to start all over again. In other words if you like to experiment and shoot lots of different types of loads then messing with the screw is going to be a constant task.

However, as several others have noted, I eventually just removed the screws which seemed to provide the best overall accuracy regardless of load in both rifles.

In the early 1970s, I eventually restocked my uncle's rifle with a Bishop semi-inlet when he shattered his stock one year in a fall. When I restocked, I glassed the action and free floated the barrel. After that, the rifle shot far better than all the previous screw twisting and screw removals I had done -- with any ammo load!

Barstooler

I went out to a friends ranch and did a little shooting. It was off a make shift bench and with a round bale as the target board at 120 yards, I hoped for something more stable for a difinitive test but it went ok. I took the screw out and the first group was a full five inches directly to the right of the previous point of impact. I kinda figured I'd avoid using the screw in a tuning trial after that. I did manage to shoot four groups that were all almost exactly an inch and a quarter with nice triangular groups. I was real happy with the 2840 fps 160gr partition load and a standard deviation in the single digits. I'll load some more and take it to the range to set my zero where I want it and call it good for this years hunt. I think I probably have some room for improvement in the future. I'm real happy with this 53 year old rifle and look forward to hunting with it this year.