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To Float or Not to Float…..

memtb

memtb

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2013
Messages
6,884
Location
Winchester, Wy.
that is the question!

* Your mission, should you choose to accept it……answer the questions! 😉

It seems that I've never seen a post whereas "full-length" bedding is recommended!

My hunting rifle has "full-length" bedding, which was offered as an option when I had it built. I think that it shoots pretty good…..considering the " loose nut" behind the trigger.

* Am I the only one that shoots a rifle with "full-length" bedding…..it seems that way.

* Have any of you experimented with full- length bedding? If so, your results.

* If you have not tried it….Why? Are you simply following the path of everyone else, or is a "free floated" barrel always the best path to take?

Thanks for any and all responses! memtb
 
akmtnhnt said:
The fieldcraft came full length bedded from the factory. Forbes did that to his rifles to.

Idk anyone that does anymore. I wonder if the super thin pencil barrels do benefit from jt.
Click to expand...
I've always thought that it may be an advantage on the thin barrels!

I don't really consider my barrel "thin", but it was the lightest contour that Douglas offered in that caliber at that time! memtb
 
I have a 22/250 that is fully bedded and it has a MTR contour barrel on it. Don't know why the gunsmith did it that way but it really shoots great. He was an old time smith and it was a walnut stock. All my other rifles are free floated and bedded about an inch to inch and a half in front of recoil lug and all the way back to the tang. I don't have any complaints with the way they shoot either. Main complaint is the way I shoot ….
 
memtb said:
that is the question!

* Your mission, should you choose to accept it……answer the questions! 😉

It seems that I've never seen a post whereas "full-length" bedding is recommended!

My hunting rifle has "full-length" bedding, which was offered as an option when I had it built. I think that it shoots pretty good…..considering the " loose nut" behind the trigger.

* Am I the only one that shoots a rifle with "full-length" bedding…..it seems that way.

* Have any of you experimented with full- length bedding? If so, your results.

* If you have not tried it….Why? Are you simply following the path of everyone else, or is a "free floated" barrel always the best path to take?

Thanks for any and all responses! memtb
Click to expand...
If I'm not mistaken, all NULA rifles are full length bedded. They are built to exact alignment and to deliver 1 shot on target. 2 at most. The idea being the skinny barrel never gets hot enough to deflect off the stock. Personally, I like my barrels to float fore of an inch forward from the recoil lug.
 
Another thing that I thought about at length……yes I have an "idle mind"!

In a hunting rifle, I thought that another potential advantage of "full length" bedding may be……no possibility of debris getting into the barrel channel, possibly creating a change in barrel harmonics.

Even getting water into the channel, then freezing and swelling against the barrel …..changing the harmonics!

Maybe paranoia….or a real possibility! memtb
 
memtb said:
Another thing that I thought about at length……yes I have an "idle mind"!

In a hunting rifle, I thought that another potential advantage of "full length" bedding may be……no possibility of debris getting into the barrel channel, possibly creating a change in barrel harmonics.

Even getting water into the channel, then freezing and swelling against the barrel …..changing the harmonics!

Maybe paranoia….or a real possibility! memtb
Click to expand...
If you're rifle is that frozen you have some other problem to worry about other than harmonics.

from Iraq to Afghanistan, and from Africa to Syria, I've never had any rifle fail to shoot because of debris. If you've ever stepped off a helicopter, or VTOL in any of those **** holes, then you'd know what I mean. Dirt gets in everything.

We would do some of our predeployment training for colder weather mountain warfare, winter high angle shooting and horsemanship in Bridgeport, Ca, never had a issue with snow.

Some similar courses too at Fort Wainwright in Alaska.

That said, if ice forms as such, it's reasonable, even likely that moisture enter and causes ice damming IN the barrel and chamber.

This could potentially be catastrophic due to the compressive nature of water with explosives. Assuming you could even chamber a round. We aren't talking about powdered snow, I mean that deep hard to get off ice in exposed elements.
Powder is no problem.
 
I had an old time gunsmith full length bed a Winchester Lightweight 22-250 (not to be confused with Featherweight) rifle with a nice walnut stock for me once and that rifle shot lights out for me until a prairie dog trip did a number on the throat. The barrel was only 20" and I didn't want to have it set back so I sold it with full disclosure.

To this day I miss that very light good shooting rifle and wish I'd rebarreled it but then, hindsight being 20/20......

On a very good day with perfect conditions and lots of serious breath control I shot several groups under 1.5" at 300 yards with it and the bullets were Winchester 55gr lead tip bullets with flat bases. That rifle would really shoot. I wish I'd introduced it to some match bullets. I bet it would have been a true one holer....
 
I own several dozen rifles in "hunting" calibers (22-250, 2506, 270,243) and a pile of AR platform guns…plus the many that I sold….and

Every single one has given it's best accuracy with a free floated barrel…the ones that came from the factory with "barrel pressure" pads in the barrel channel (Sako, Remington, Weatherby etc) benefitted the most from free floating…dramatically.
 
I have a Remington 721 in .270 Winchester. I got it from the original owner, who purchased it in 1958. It shot 4-inch groups when I got it. I did my first bedding job on the action area, and it still did not shoot great. I read a lot of articles in magazines and got a book from the library. Yes, I said library because this was pre-internet. I scraped out the barrel channel and full length bedded it. It shoots .5-to-.75-inch groups at 100 yards. This has the original factory barrel yet today after close to 2000 rounds down the tube.
All of my other rifles are free floated except a Weatherby Vangard.
 
I have a Remington model 700 in 280 that I customized somewhat. It received a custom maple stock and the stock maker who did it, did full length bedding on the stock. It shoots great with the McGowan prefit barrel, but it is the only rifle out of many that I have, that is full length bedded. Usually I just do the barrel tang and receiver. If the stock has an aluminum bedding block already, I usually just skim bed the front tang and call it good.
 

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