WSM shooter, I have a hard time trusting factory bedding (especially the NH hot glue type):

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For obvious reasons I bed my own whistle...

Now let me pick apart what you wrote in your post: "The wear marks on the bluing indicate movement on the fore end of the barrel". That right there tells me you need to freefloat it more and bed the recoil lug and tang of your receiver. Kind of like this:

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I'm not going to show pictures of groups (again), but let me reassure you my winchesters shoot better than any remington I've ever had..Your rifle sounds like it it loose in the stock and the barrel slapping against the forend of the stock will undoubtedly cause flyers, horizontal and probably more than anything vertical stringing....Furthermore, by bedding the forend with upward pressure you are just puting a bandaid on it and not fixing the problem. There are a lot of tricks you can do with bedding and winchesters react to different types of bedding procedures just like any rifle does. If you need further assistance, please feel free to pm me and I can share more details on what works and what doesn't work with them wink...By the way, I have one sitting in bedding compound right now and it is freefloated all the way out and I know it will be a good shooter when I'm done.

I think I like my first bansner grin:
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cool


Originally Posted by raybass
I try to stick with the basics, they do so well. Nothing fancy mind you, just plain jane will get it done with style.
Originally Posted by Pharmseller
You want to see an animal drop right now? Shoot him in the ear hole.

BSA MAGA