pressure bedding vs free floating

[94Winchester]

I was reading an article which was talking about glass bedding the barrel along with the action. Which is better bedding the barrel vs free floating? What are the disadvantages and advantages of both.

 

[Mikecr]

Somewhere out there is a mad genius that that can make a fully bedded gun shoot.
I think I could too -for about 5 minutes!

Beyond that, I would not be able to EXACTLY control pressure points, or the system temperatures, or humidity. Hell even free floated, guns are still very sensitive to pressure points along their forearm.

 

[Fitch]

I was reading an article which was talking about glass bedding the barrel along with the action. Which is better bedding the barrel vs free floating? What are the disadvantages and advantages of both.

The advantage of free floating the barrel is that it starts the dynamics of being fired from the same initial conditions for each shot. It's a cantilevered beam with very repeatable and predictable dynamic behavior.

If you touch the floated barrel anyplace except very close to the receiver barrel junction, it changes things from simple and predictable to complex and chaotic. The barrel doesn't stay straight and wag up and down, it recoils with several different modes of vibration which means it will hit the full length bedding in different places bouncing off it and deflecting the muzzle slightly (it doesn't take much) in unpredictable directions. With barrel expansion due to heat, stock dimensional changes due to heat or moisture, the fit of the barrel in the channel may be different for each shot which means it starts the dynamic process from different initial conditions.

That is why free floating is much better than full length bedding. That's why free floating and glass + dual pillar bedding has almost completely replaced full length bedding which used to be all the rage 3 or 4 decades ago.

Fitch

 

[mmoser]

What about pressure bedding for sporter weight barrels?

I've free floated a couple bull or full contour barrels with good results, but my Rem 700 with a the original sporter barrel seems to shoot better with a little bit of pressure at the tip of the forearm. I've read this article which also seems to suggest this.

Understanding Barrel Bedding

Has anyone else had similar results with sporter barrels?

 

[Mikecr]

my Rem 700 with a the original sporter barrel seems to shoot better with a little bit of pressure at the tip of the forearm

I certainly hope your perspectives on 'accuracy' are better than that butchered in the article:
"I want at least a 1 1/4-MOA rifle, and I want the first shot (and one or two follow-ups if needed) to go exactly where I expect"
1st, NONE of THAT makes any sense....
2nd, he went roundy roundy suggesting forearm pressure without a single basis for it. Then falls back from direction to abandon forearm pressure due to detrimental POI shifts from it. Then he wraps up with lame implications that any bedding he's ever heard of might work, -so try them all!
OMG

GUNWRITERS.......................
If this guy shot off a bench near me, I wonder if he would think I was an alien from the future?
He should, and he should keep his distance, and not interrupt me with a bunch of stupid questions..
Oh ****,, Here he comes,, I knew it!

 

[mmoser]

I certainly hope your perspectives on 'accuracy' are better than that butchered in the article:

Lmao...yeah I didn't quite agree with his view on "accuracy". I've always been taught the accuracy vs precision. Precision measured in how tight your groups are and accuracy measured by how close you are to your intended POI, but anyways that's for a different thread.

However, the part about pressure on the tip of the forearm might have some truth. The fact that many factory rifles have pressure on the sporter barrels at the same place must be there for some reason. Since I've even experienced this with my rifle I'm leaning toward the same conclusion. I've only found this true on one rifle though so I'm wondering if anyone else has had similar results.

 

[Mikecr]

Well, any pressure point is contributing towards, or away from tune. Like an adjustable tuner.
There is only one version of adjustable pressure point that I'm aware of though, and it's not factory. In fact, the only factory provided tunning I've seen is Browning's BOSS(which works well).

You could wrap a few turns of electric tape at any barrel position on 10 guns, and find that accuracy seemed to improve on one or two of them. That's not design, or basis, it's blind luck.
So if you could prove it works with one, I could prove it doesn't with another.