Generally, I make a stock for a rifle I've bought that is more suitable for shooting from bench rest. Always free float the barrel channel.
Did buy a new Ruger 77 Hawkeye 257R rifle that I've never made a stock for....too nice a stock on it. Anyway, shot around 60 rounds with it before I took the barreled action out of the stock to inspect it. Rifle certainly had enough accuracy for hunting, but had tried various reloads with no decent improvement for accuracy.....already owned 4 other 257 Roberts rifles, so not new to the 257R cartridge.
Was surprised by how much pressure was in the forend of the Ruger stock. Amount of wood I had to remove from the fore end kinda surprised me. Anyway, free floating the barrel made a very very slight improvement in the accuracy.
Chuckle, lightening the pull of the factory Ruger trigger did more to improve accuracy than my barrel channel work.
