With the mid barrel screw, how do you free float a pre 64 m70 barrel?
Remove the screw and free float back to the receiver?

Perry

Obviously, that feature is no longer used; it was never a good design feature; it is a carry over from the 19th century. So yes, you just remove it and remove any touching wood, just as if the screw was never there. The escutcheon won't interfere. I would cut the screw off and epoxy it in place to fill up the escutcheon counter bore.

My 1952 270 shoots just fine with screw in place. It is tightened down just "a bit", not real hard.

The screw feature isn't bad with a heavy recoiling rifle, it serves much the same as cross bolts or cross bolt back ups, especially with the 500 and up..

Also its a good idea to determine if you can use the screw tension to make that gun shoot, I have seen many occasions wherein that screw with the right tension made mod. 70s shoot great, when they would not otherwise..Must do this prior to monkeying with it... Glass does not increase the value of a pre 64,quite the opposite.

But if one deems it necessary to free float the rifle then I would free float the barrel, not leaving a line of glass showing on the top line of the forearm as you see so much off these days....

I will also state flat out that free floating is not the answer in all cases, its just an option contrary to what we hear so often. It has in fact ruined the value of many guns, and ruined the accuracy in some.

As to the forend screw I cut it off so it serves no purpose and makes no barrel contact, I remove and modify the female part to make no contact , some just glass the screw head back into the hole, and that's an option, but I grind the female to hold the screw in the wood only and cut off what protrudes...it serves no purpose but looks better than a plug or glassed hole in the wood IMO..Gun still looks original and that is a nice option.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:


I will also state flat out that free floating is not the answer in all cases, its just an option contrary to what we hear so often. It has in fact ruined the value of many guns, and ruined the accuracy in some.

When I was doing warranty for Weatherby, I once asked one of the repairmen why they put a 13 pound pressure point on their barrels? The answer was pretty simple. They had done a tremendous amount of trial and error research. In every case, if you added a pressure point to the barrels of 100 different guns and shot all of them and took the total deviation from zero of every bullet, from every gun and then compared it to the data from the same guns with free floated barrels. The number attained with the barrels with pressure points was ALWAYS more than enough smaller to justify using pressure points. Some guns will shoot much better with free floated barrels, but the majority, over an average favor pressure.

The greatest good, of the greatest number, is always the prime consideration, when making a decision or choosing a course of action!