free floating barrel

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mike Crawford

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how important is it too have a free floating barrel .. i was looking at my model 70 today and the you can not put a ""Bill "" between the barrel and stock and it shoots fine .. I did my Remington 600 and you can slide a bill under the barrel .. My model 38 Mauser the same .. I was always told you should be able to do this with any rifle or yuor accuracy will be effected .. But the model 70 shoots fine
 
My M700 Whelen stock touches the barrel in numerous places, zero issues with accuracy

My M788 243 stock touched the barrel all over, but accuracy was good, I floated it and accuracy went out the window.
 
I just can't believe how many shooters here on CGN hang onto the false theory that to be accurate, the barrel must float.
 
GMC403 said:
My M700 Whelen stock touches the barrel in numerous places, zero issues with accuracy

My M788 243 stock touched the barrel all over, but accuracy was good, I floated it and accuracy went out the window.
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So can yuo bed the stock where it use too touch and get your accuracy back ..

Or if the barrel is touching and your accuracy is not good .. How do you know if making it free floating will help ...

Or if you were building a gun .. do you make the barrel free float or not
 
The vast majority of rifles today are more consistent with a bedded action and a floated barrel. Accuracy and a consistent point of impact are usually easier to achieve. That being said the vast majority of shooters may not be able to see a difference.
 
GMC403 said:
That's exactly what I ended up having to do.
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Well that is at least god too hear .. Be a real bummer if you screwed the stock and had too get another ..

what got me too thinking LOL A guy told me the barrel had too free float ... But the military ; some of them were like 29 inch barrels . with wood top and bottom or full length stocks today must touch somewhere
 
I have owned one rifle that I had to recreate the pressure point to get the best accuracy. With the pressure point in place it shot good groups, but the zero was not as consistent as my other rifles with floated barrels.
 
If it isn't broke don't fix it. Doesn't sound like there is a problem to fix either.

I always shoot a new gun before doing anything to it. If it shoots good leave it if not then see what can be done. I have 2 rifles right now where the stock is touching the barrel both shoot great.
 
Weatherby Vangaurd rifles are an excellent example of this. The Vangaurd barrels are not free floated on purpose and the stocks have an upward pressure point right at the tip of the stock. These rifles shoot great and don't need to be free floated.

Really depends on the rifle though. I have a Savage target rifle that wouldn't group respectively until I free floated both the barrel and the rear tang. Now it shoots like a house on fire.
 
Shim
Shoot
&
See

Shim the action just enough to provide free floating of the barrel, and shoot the rifle to see the results.
If the accuracy improves, you're off to the next phase of gun tinkering.
If suddenly you see a marked decrease in accuracy, remove the shims and carry on as before.

For shims I like strips of that annoying clear over packaging so much stuff comes in these days.
I have used two pieces of end flap off of an ammunition box. But that was an early revelation on the 3S's.
 
Most of my rifles with sporter weight barrels have forend pressure and this is how they shoot the best. All 700s come from Rem with a forend pressure point, and have held the name as the "best out of the box accuracy" for many, many years. Shimming the forend to create upwards barrel pressure is SOP for me when tuning a new rifle for accuracy, only about 1 in 10 actually shoots better with out it. Remember I'm talking sporter weight barrels, not varmint or bench weight, these almost always shoot better floated.
 
Well Douglas, good to read that, coming from a man of your experience with rifles. It echoes what I found out for myself a looong time ago and I couldn't count how many times I have written something similar on here in the ten years plus that I have been on CGN.
In the 1950s I observed that the sporting rifle class centre fire competitive shooters used pressure under the barrel and some of them even carried a spring scale in their shooting gear, so they could check the pressure before a match, which would be about six pounds of pressure on the scale when the barrel would move off the pressure point.
It's funny how the makes of rifles well known for their accuracy, such as the old Parker Hale, some models of Husqvarna, Schultz and Larsen, Remington 700 and the newer Marlin Model XS7, all have pressure under the barrel at the front of the stock. But, it depends on the design of the barrel, as the new Tikka T3, well known for its accuracy, has a free floated barrel from the factory.
 
I've had sour shooting rifles that I've fixed by free-floating. Then there are a few that I could calm down by putting some pressure in. In between are several rifles that came pressure bedded and got restocked free-floating and shot just fine either way. I've cured wandering zeros by taking out the pressure pads. Some shot better, some didn't unless you consider shooting to the same place two days in a row better. I do, but some people would rather have all their misses going to the same place, location unknown. Then you age the school of thought that pressure bedded are better at putting the cold shot where it belongs, or that pressure and full bedded stocks are better for putting different loads to the same point of impact at reasonable range. All you'd need to prove or disprove that is several rifles with two stocks bedded each way, several loads optimized for each bedding technique, a truck load of bullets and a couple months of barrel cooling time. Let me know how it turns out. Remember to change stocks between groups.

The lightest barrels that I own happen to be on Kimbers. Out of the 4 with light barrels 3 shot better with a Devcon pad up front. The last one is probably the best shooting of the bunch and it isn't touching anything.


About the only thing I know for sure is that if a rifle doesn't shoot one way, do the opposite. Conversely, the old "If it's not broke don't fix it" approach can be dusted off and utilized.
 
canadaman30 said:
Doesn't Savage Arms believe a freefloating barrel is an essential part of building an accurate rifle???.
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The new winchesters say they are free floated as well but the supergrade I just got is resting on the stock at the tip. It is going to stay that way too because I can't get it out of the stock lol
 
canadaman30 said:
Doesn't Savage Arms believe a freefloating barrel is an essential part of building an accurate rifle???.
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Again, depends on the rifle. The Vanguard II's and Howa (same action/same barrel) are NOT free floated (with their #2 contour barrels) and they are every bit as accurate, if not more accurate, than a Savage right out of the box.

If your Wby VGII "doesn't" shoot sub-moa out of the box Weatherby will take it back and work on it for you to make sure it does - does Savage offer the same guarantee? (or anyone else for that matter).

And besides, this question is in the "hunting" section. Unless you are shooting animals from a bench/gun vice 1/4 MOA difference is never going to be seen in the field.

I can clamp my Wby VGII (243 Win) and get 1/2" @ 100 yards, but when I shoot it "under field conditions" I'm up to 1 1/2" which is the "most accurate I can shoot" which is 3" @ 200 and 6" @ 400 (further than I would shoot and still "accurate enough" to take a deer or moose).

So I am with the group that says "don't mess with it" unless you can't get less than 2" @ 100 from a decent rest. Unless you send it to someone who knows what they are doing you might simply make things worse.
 
The only negatives of wood stock guns that I've experienced is foul weather, ever so slightly warping the forend of the stock and putting pressure on the barrel. Accuracy went to hell until the barrel was once again floated, yes it was a wood stock Tikka. Also freefloated a Remington and cut group sizes in half.
 
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