[UTGrad]

I know very little about bedding a stock and know nothing about what type of bedding job the maker of this custom Interarms Mark X did on this rifle. I guess the good thing is the barrel is free floating. I slipped some labels in three spots to see if the barrel is free floating. It stops at the fat part of the barrel. Will this enhance accuracy?

 

[MikeG]

That's pretty good for a hunting rifle as far as I'm concerned. Note, free-floating does not guarantee the best accuracy. Many rifles can be made to shoot better groups with some amount of forend pressure on the barrel.

What you get in a free-floating barrel is less of a wandering zero due to the stock flexing in response to the temp, humidity, etc. If you want to see if your gun could have a zero issue if such things were to happen, add a little forend pressure and see if the groups move. Try one business card, then two, three, etc.

Chances are the zero will move a bit, and you might be surprised how much and in which direction.

 

[Rubberduck]

I agree with Mike. For a hunting rifle you have a great set up. Good trigger, good optics and a free floated barrel. With the rifles that Iv seen free floated it does improve accuracy and I can see where a non-free floated gun would change point of impact from day to day. Iv seen some guns that are floated all the way back to the recoil lug and still didnt group as well as guns floated like yours. With the right load (or just the right factory load) your gun should shoot under 1". And if it doesnt, thats ok too. Youre shooting at roughly a 6" vital zone on whitetails so even a 2" group will do the job. Thats where the term "minute of whitetail" comes into play.

 

[unclenick]

Bedding the portion of the barrel surrounding the chamber is done intentionally by some. Nothing wrong with it. Bruce Baer glues a sleeve over that area of the barrel and then beds the sleeve to the stock, leaving the rest of the barrel and the whole receiver free floating. That system apparently works quite well. Another interesting method is described by Harold Vaughn, who developed a kind of stacked T-shaped leaf spring receiver mount, two of which were attached to the stock at the bottom and the action at the top, but with no direct bedding of the barrel or action themselves. This arrangement allowed the action and barrel to recoil fairly freely during the time the bullet was still in the barrel. It was part of his 1/4 moa .270, as I recall? It is described in his book, Rifle Accuracy Facts.

 

[Brad4]

I have a Winchester model 70 Featherweight in 7m-08 with a wood stock. In talking with my gunsmith about improving accuracy he recommended re-bedding the action and barrel with fiberglass. This was done and the gun does perform better than when it was in factory inletted condition. I am confused regarding the relative merits of free floating the action/barrel versus fully bedded barrel. Are these simply two alternative solutions to the problem of stock pressure due to barrel heat, humidity on wood, etc. or is there some documentation regarding the relative merits of either approach to wood stocked firearms?

Brad

 

[ohlord]

Free floating

Depends on the stock and the recoil of the gun. First try bedding action and a few inches of wood ahead of recoil lug. Free float barrel the rest of the way. Shoot, if happy fine. If not try a support band of devcon plastic steel halfway between the guns cg and the end of the barrel.
Last would be a full bed of the barrel. Most likely overkill with a low recoil rifle like the one you are shooting. A pretty good tutorial for like characteristic rifle.
http://www.varminthunters.com/tech/bedding.html
if you are a diy type of shooter