Any links or personal tips will be appreciated.

Doing a Rem700 with a Laminate stock.

Sandpaper grits? - Dowel rods? - Use a woodworking scraping tool? - A gauging method that helps prevent boo-boos?

Tell me (and others) what you know.

TBC

This is what I do. I will lay masking tape down the length of the the barrel on each side to protect it's finish. I will then place the barrelled action in the stock and with a pen, draw a tight outline of the barrel directly to the stock, guiding the pen along the junction of the masking tape and forend.

Then I will take the stock channeling tools as sold through brownells and carefully open the barrel channel to the area marked. If the stock is plastic then I may use special scrapers I've made which rapidly peel away layers of plastic until I'm at my mark. I will stop "frequently" to check progress. Once I have arrived at the line, I will, using 180 grit emory cloth, clean up the channel and then if the stock is wood, seal the barrel channel to keep out moisture.

When determining how much to float a barrel, keep in mind that things tend to move as things heat up. The barrel will move when hot and the stock if made of wood, it too can move as the environment changes. Add to this the natural tendency of the barrel to whip under recoil and you may need a fair amount of clearance to keep things from colliding into each other which will totally destroy accuracy.

I personnally don't go much for the dollar bill clearance theory. I would much more prefer about 10 dollars worth of clearance. That would be about 10 1$ bills.


Good luck,

Malm

Thanks Malmborg, valuable info there.

i too believe that the clearance of a dollar bill is not enough when free floating a barrel. if the customer wants it i do it, but i try to talk them into a solid bed or more clearance. just my $.02