Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Free Floating Questions

I have a Ruger 77 Compact in 308. I shoot factory ammo.I used to handload but time and interest are not there at present. Last year shooting at 100 yards. 3 shots would regularly group at an inch or so using Hornady 150 grain American Whitetail ammo. This year this rifle groups opened up to about 1 1/2 to 2 inch groups. Nothing is different and the rifle is clear. I am guessing the humidity or lack of humidity has changed the stick ever so slightly. Would free floating cure this or will it open the group's up more?

what scope are you using.

Weaver straight 6x.

I will add that the weather was bad......damp and raining.

Check mounts.

Scope? Mounts?

Scope I don't know as it is only 2 years old......it hasn't been dropped or bumped. Mounts.......could be.......although the riifle was cleaned and put away right after last season and not shot until this year.

Receiver screws tight?

Never hurts to bed the receiver to stock. Bedding I do also has compound under chamber area of barrel. Works good in my experience.

Never hurts to check... cheaper and quicker than a bedding job. And age has nothing to do with the longevity of a scope, very precise instruments, typically built to hit price points that are asked to do some complex crap...

Did you fire the groups with the same lot of ammo?

Yes I did.

Yes, consistent bedding will always help a gun to shoot more consistently.

Whether free floating or not is your problem, remains to be determined.

Have you ever free floated the barrel on this rifle?

Do you know how to check to see if it is free floated?

If not, that's the first thing I would do.

With few exceptions, it's the first think I do to all my rifles before I ever shoot them.

+1 on this

The purpose of free floating is to provide a stable zero so that pressure on the barrel from the stock doesn't affect the point of impact. Free floating by itself may or may not affect group size. More or less pressure on the barrel might, but inconsistent pressure on the barrel can throw off the point of impact by feet depending on range.

I don't like to chase my own tail, so every rifle I own is free floated and ends up that way before I send a single round downrange...obviously, I consider free floating to be essential.

I would also check the scope itself, but if point of impact is ok, I wouldn't worry about 1/2" inside 500yds.

I've hunted with ammo that shot worse than that and never had a problem. But I don't shoot beyond 300, maybe 400 yds. either.
Like everybody said, check the action screws and especially the scope ring screws. Make sure they are lined up properly as well.
If you want to try the rifle with the barrel free floated, I really like Mule Deer's trick. Put a business card or, better yet a plastic bag closure under the forward guard screw. If a twice folded dollar bill will go all the way back in the barrel channel, you are good to go.
This may not improve the rifle's accuracy, but it usually makes the zero stay put when the weather changes. E

One other thing that might have an effect - you say you cleaned it and didn't shoot again until this year? Might you have a rifle that needs a slightly dirty bore to go back to what you had? Other than that, I think the scope checking is the way to go. Scopes can fail after one shot, during shipment to the store (or your house) or after 20 + years. They are made by man (or man-made equipment) and can and do, fail. Same with the rings and bases.

Free floating will eliminate one source of problems for a wood stock that may have accumulated moisture, but that usually just changes point of impact and groups remain consistent. Tightening the action screws to the same setting as when it was put away will eliminate that possibility. Loose scope mounts or a loose reticle in the scope scope is the last. Swap scopes to check. If you haven't shot for a while, 'operator error' is another possibility. I've found that after laying off a good while it takes a couple of trips to the range to get my $hit together.

I had a similar, or worse, experience with one of the most accurate factory rifles I ever owned, a M70. It had always been consistent. Would put 20 rounds into 1 inch. Put it away one winter and when I went out to shoot the next year groups were near 5". Didn't know much then but free floating was being talked about. Did that and it shot again. Move forward one year and the groups moved several inches. Had not sealed the barrel channel, stock warped further moving POI inconsistently. Was my first bedding job some 60 years ago, but I bedded it, barrel "neutral", and that gun still shoots bughole groups. Since then I've free floated most of mine, which enables bedding later. Then if the gun doesn't shoot, bed the barrel neutral from where you can experiment up pressure by adding pieces of business cards under barrel for up pressure until you find a sweet spot. If after all that it still doesn't shoot, get a new barrel!!

Not true.

Groups typically shrink, often dramatically.

I'm with snipe hunter on both counts. Check barrel contact first and foremost. Last and always, too.
Never had a rifle, with ONE exception, a Kraut K98 in 8, that shot better bedded than floated.

As for the Ruger, with a simple scope and minimal handing, the weather alone might have opened up the groups.

Also, there's a real possibility that plain old LACK OF PRACTICE is a factor. On the same box? Not much shooting with that gun. I know that if I don't get trigger time, I forget how to "shoot." If my groups are only 50 percent bigger after I've laid away from guns for a while (like two weeks max), that's a good sign for me.