Free Float wood stock

[Koda94]

I'm wondering whats the best way to free float the barrel on a wood stock bolt action rifle. My project is an older Remington 700. Is there a gunsmith tool to efficiently sand out the barrel groove in the wood stock?

Also, is there any reason not to float the barrel? This is a hunting rifle but Ive recently enjoyed some target shooting with it and want to see if I can tighten up my group. It works fine for hunting, but I don't want to do something to make it worse for that or open up a bigger project than I'm prepared for.

 

[mete]

There is a scraper that does that job well. Do the whole thing , glass bed and free float. We were taught to bed 2" the free float .The old cut the channel so a dollar bill will freely go through between barrel and stock may not be enough especially with a light whippy barrel !

 

[Koda94]

There is a scraper that does that job well.

I did some searching and found the tool Im looking for is called an inletting tool. Brownells sells them for 30 bucks, easy enough except my stock barrel is tapered... the majority of it measures .660". So what is the process to inlet the stock with just one, say 11/16" (.688") inlet tool around the thickest part of the barrel where it screws into the action?

also, upon inspection it appears the barrel is contacting the stock near the end about where the sling screw is installed. Ive heard that some companies do this on purpose for accuracy (with a pressure pad...?) so would removing this contact area hurt accuracy?


http://www.gunline.com/inletting.html

 

[dakota.potts]

There's not really a quick, one size fits all way to open up the channel. Certain ball end mills can be used to hog out large portions of a channel or open up a very wide free float channel with no taper.

The barrel bedding tools you mentioned are a good start.

The most commonly used tool when I did mine is a set of swiss gouges, I believe a number 3 and number 9 sweep (one flat and wide, one more U-shaped).

http://www.woodcraft.com/brands/5637146171/pfeil-swiss-made.aspx

We also used a lot of Jerry Fisher stock scrapers to finish contouring, even out the finish, and take away small thicknesses of wood. Scrapers can be made out of old band saw blades by grinding until a burr rolls over, but the Jerry Fisher scrapers work very well right out of the box and have a variety of useful shapes.

You can get the barreled action and paint it with inletting black, screw inletting screws into the action and drop it into the stock, tapping down gently with a non-marring mallet. Gently remove everywhere in the barrel channel that the inletting black prints. Once you get no more printing, you can wrap the barrel with tape equivalent to the thickness of free float you want (we used 10 mil pipe wrap tape). Put the inletting black on the tape and repeat the process, slowly cutting and scraping away everywhere the black prints until you either get no more printing or until you get an even "leopard print" pattern across the stock, depending on how much you want the barrel channel to float.



That is the "slow" way I did it.

 

[Koda94]

this might be more work than I want to take on.... it is pointless to float the barrel and not bed the action?

 

[Gunplummer]

You said it is a hunting rifle. The problem with floating a barrel with a factory wood stock is that the wood on the fore end is rarely stiff enough to do it, let alone the thin barrel someone already mentioned. I have pulled apart old model 70 Winchesters that were very accurate and the wood was so tight to the barrel that it look as if the tree grew around it. There is a lot of hype about free floating barrels and bedding. If you use the wrong components, it is a waste of time. Anybody can make an accurate 10 pound rifle. Do you really want to hunt with it?

 

[tangolima]

Free floating barrel, pillar bedding, and trigger adjustment did magic to my 40-year-old rem 700 bdl. 4 moa to less than 1moa with 20-shot groups.

I used rasp bits on foredom to hog out the wood. 20mil pipe wrap to shim the barrel.

-TL

 

[T. O'Heir]

An inletting tool isn't what you need. You need a pack of sand paper and some wood sealer. Helps to use a 1" dowel to wrap the sand paper around.
Floating a barrel guarantees absolutely nothing though. Some rifle like it, some do not. And some really hate it. Isn't about a make/model either. Every rifle is different. However, the only way to find out if your rifle likes it is to try it. Sand, not chisels, gouges, inletting tools or any other harsh wood removal tools, the barrel channel until mete's dollar bill goes under the barrel to the chamber area and no farther.
If the rifle proves it doesn't like a floated barrel, putting a pressure point back in is neither difficult nor expensive. Takes a dab of bedding material about 1 to 2 inches aft of the end of the forestock.
"...float the barrel and not bed the action..." Depends on how well the receiver site in the stock without bedding material. Floating is usually something done/tried when bedding though.
"...more work than..." It's really not. Takes more to describe than to do. Buy an Accraglas kit and read the directions on the box. Way easier to do than it sounds.

 

[Koda94]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I did some searching and found that many manufacturers put a pressure point on the aft of the forearm on purpose to help stabilize the barrel/action into the stock. This apparently is a cheap way to improve accuracy without the expense of bedding the stock. A stock rifle might not like being floated, some do...

so really the project simply takes time to learn what the rifle likes and before I make a choice I should be prepared to also bed the action and or put back any pressure on the barrel if needed. I also read somewhere that some people even bed the entire barrel..

I will look into the whole process. I may decided to just leave it alone, or possibly have a smith do the work. If its easy enough I might do it all myself. The Remington stock I have does have a pressure point on the barrel near the end of the forearm but its roughly cut into the wood with no nicely made support or pad, so my guess is that can be improved right there. My guess is to shim the action to float the barrel and test fire and see if there is any improvement. If there is I may only need to float the barrel. If not I might need to bed the action too then test fire to determine if I need to build back a proper pressure point. Technically thats a bit more work than I was hoping but would be worth it in the end to improve precision.

 

[jmr40]

With sporter weight or heavier barrels free floating almost never hurts. It may not help, but it is very unlikely to hurt. With thinner mountain rifle contour barrels results are sometimes mixed and it MIGHT shoot worse.

I've simply used a deep well socket wrapped in sandpaper. Keep going up in size until you get the barrel channel where you want it. I only bed the recoil lug.

 

[Koda94]

With thinner mountain rifle contour barrels results are sometimes mixed and it MIGHT shoot worse.

after some research that is what I learned. If I go down this road I need to be prepared to put back the pressure point if needed. Im going to start with shimming the action up to clear the barrel temporarily and see how it shoots. If it improves precision then I will remove the shims and float/bed the rifle.

 

[jmr40]

If your rifle is a standard contour barrel profile I doubt if it will hurt accuracy to free float. You didn't mention it being one of the mountain rifles.

What I'm understanding about floating thinner barrels is that while group size may increase, consistency improves. The thin barrels (really any barrel) with full contact with the wood stock may shoot very tiny groups. But as temperature, humidity and altitude change the wood stock will put uneven pressure on the barrel as it contracts and expands. It will still shoot tiny groups, but the point of impact changes.

Once the barrel is floated group size may actually get larger, but usually only by a tiny amount. But once floated the point of impact remains unchanged as the wood expands and contracts. Since there is a gap between wood and barrel the wood is free to move without touching the barrel.

The simplest solution is the one I've chosen. Wood is for burning in the fireplace, synthetic stocks belong on rifles that need to shoot accurately.

 

[Koda94]

thats good advice jmr40

I dont know what a "mountain rifle" is. Mine has a stock tapered barrel, original wood stock. My dad bought it to hunt big game with and thats what I primarily use if for. I agree with you about synthetic stocks being better but mine is inherited from my dad and so I want to keep it the same as long as possible. This rifle has a history of our relationship and sentimental value.

I could be willing to compromise precision for accuracy, that would be an easy compromise actually. I'm still learning but I think mine is the opposite, good accuracy low precision. Ive been noticing that I get super high precision the first two shots from a cold barrel then by the third shot it opens up beyond 1moa, (usually to the right). Then with a hot barrel everything opens up more and I lose my good accuracy. The rifle works well for hunting under 200yds but I would like to improve the accuracy for longer shots.