Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Model 7, Bed or not to Bed?

I just got a new Model 7 CDL (wood stock). For those that have Model 7's, is their accuracy usually decent enough for hunting without bedding, or is bedding/floating recommended?

I bed and free-float anything with a wood stock... not for pure accuracy, but to ensure that point of impact changes are minimized with changes in temperature / humidity.

Don't think you can predict accuracy changes in advance, to be honest....

I FL bed modest tubes,in modest Walnut handles.

I'm a believer in it for accuracy,as well as SteelBed makin' a damned fine moisture impervious barrier,to the barrel channel.

Your mileage,may vary....................

Have had a problem with my walnut Model 7 moving around a bit, so I would recommend bedding the barrel full-length or free float. When mine moves it moves a lot (2 feet at 100 yards!).

24MOA is a sizeable shift.

I'd be suprised if the bedding attributed 100% to that jump..............................

Well, it does still, because I've never bothered to bed that one since I don't hunt with it anymore. The bedding is so bad on it and the forend so wimpy that I can simply push the barrel and forend every which way if I feel like it. It's hard to believe it got out of the factory that way (but it does look nice).

In fact, the 24 MOA shift is more or less repeatable, in that if I push it to one side, then shoot a round, then push it back and shoot, etc. I can pretty much make groups on the target from side to side. There's a possibility that it is riding on the magazine box or something, and thus "floating" around in the stock, but I haven't bothered to check. I also have a Model 7 in the birch youth stock, which is very stiff, very well inletted, and never messes around even without being glassbedded. That's the one I lend out to people I am teaching to hunt (at least 'til the kids get a bit older).

BTW, the bad one is one of the original walnut stocks, not the new CDL.