Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Bedding protocol for mannlicher stocks

Just wondering if there's a consensus on the best way to bed barrels in a mannlicher forend?

I had success by free floating the barrel and using an O-ring in the barrel channel near the fore end tip on a Ruger RSI. I did have to open the end cap around the barrel some. The O-ring needs to give some up pressure but not too much.

This pretty much applies to any wood stocked rifle you do not want to free float. I would not free float a wood stocked Mannlicher because to to the sheer length of the forend, keeping it it from eventually touching the barrel would be nearly impossible. Floating might work on a Synthetic Mannilcher stock (yuk)

He is my protocol-

1)Well laid out and dried stock blank -preferrably quarter sawn with no knots in the fotend.

2) 100% full contact neutral stress free glass bedding from action tang to the.muzzle. Pillars around the action screws.


3) If the.gun has a muzzle cap, glass bed it to the stock and make sure it has light contact with the barrel.Just enough to keep things consistently snug.

4) Pray religiously that the wood decides not to move over time..:)

Built a full stocked rifle in the 80s using a Mark X 7X57 barreled action and a Fajen 90% inletted stock. My inletting work was so poor I asked a friend to bed it for me. When I got it back, he advised me that he had "bedded it from appetite to a**hole"! When I took it apart, the bedding was 100% (tang to the endcap) and done so well that I could read every code and mark in the underside of the metal reversed in the acraglass. The rifle has shot wonderfully from day one and still will shoot MOA when I'm doing my part.

Andrew has bedded several other rifles for me over the years and used the same procedure...."appetite to a**hole", and every one of them have shot very well indeed! But, I've owned quite a few full stocked rifles and most have shot well regardless of how the stock was bedded.

Mannlicher has made a lot of different rifles in the last 150 years.
Tell us which one. Not all of them have the same shape to the receivers, some are full stock and some are half stock, so have box magazines, some rotary and some detachable.

Or are you not speaking about a true Mannlicher, but only a "Mannlicher style" stock on some other make of rifle?

You must give more detail for an accurate answer.

Watching this thread with interest...

Many years ago when I had a local gunsmith build me a Mannlicher stocked 7x57, he bedded the entire length, free floating the barrel channel.

I get consistent groups with a variety of bullet weights.

Dan

I wonder how they came to be universally called "Mannlicher" stocks? Hardly anyone refers to them as "Mannlicher-style" stocks or "full length" stocks. To me a Mannlicher stock is one found on a full-stocked Mannlicher-Schoenauer.

6.5x54 & 250-3000

I was strongly informed by a 40 year member of the Mannlicher Collectors Society, that when they came from the factory, the "through screw" that holds the front sling stirrup provides a slight forend pressure preload between stock and barrel. If all is kosher, you need to hand squeeze barrel and stock together to get this screw to turn freely. The recoil lug is just a tiny boss for the front action screw, but it should bear evenly. The rear wall of the Schoenauer magazine should simultaneously bear against it's mating stock buttress. The rear tang screw pillar should be free of interference. The purists use linen bond paper shims to adjust bedding, epoxy being anethema to them, apparently. Particularly in the 1903, there has been a lot of blame placed on .267-.268" grooves for accuracy problems, maybe unfairly. I was told, if have overly large round groups, it could be bullet fit...if you have random unexplained flyers spoiling a group, it's probably bedding. Personally, I like the Yankee epoxy approach, but just thought to share what I have been told.

Mine was a "full length" or Mannlicher styled stock from Fajen which was fitted to a 98 Mauser with a 19" carbine barrel.

Dan

Interarms, Mossberg, and Winchester advertised their rifles with full-length stocks as their "Mannlicher" models of the Mark X, 800, and 70.

Remington calls their Model Seven with a full-length stock the "7MS" and I assume that the "MS" is an abbreviation for "Mannlicher Stock" or maybe "Mannlicher Style".

Ruger has probably made more rifles with full-length stocks than all other American manufacturers combined and they have always advertised them as being "International".

I don't remember how S&W advertised the full-length stocked rifles that they imported from Husqvarna, other than designating them their models D and E.

I tend to think of full-length stocked rifles as "Mannlichers" or as having "Mannlicher Style" stocks regardless of who made them.

PS - I have around 60 rifles with full-length stocks and often use a neoprene, not rubber, O-ring installed just behind the muzzle to insure that whatever contact the barrel has at that point is cushioned and has consistent pressure.

The rifle in question is a Ruger 77/357 carbine, so it is a mannlicher or fullstock style stock, not a Mannlicher rifle. The gun is so short I thought a mannlicher-style stock would look better than the factory tupperware synthetic stock. I'm making the pattern stock now and will send it off to get a walnut semi-inlet made. I plan to try slicing an expendable blank in half and laminate a thin piece of walnut board stock between the halves like the Kilamanjaro/Serengeti shops did/do hoping this will take care of the forearm-warping gremlin.

gnoahhh, A good question sir, my German immigrant friends have corrected me more than once when I referred to full length stocks as Mannlichers. The proper germanic term for a full stock apparently is "stutzen" (sounds like schtootsun) for any generic rifle. Further, as they would say, "Der Mannlicher Rifle yess, iss having Mannlicher stock, zat iss korrect ant proper".
Sheesh, picky, picky. But I can see why historians are glad Adolf decided to invade Russia, we might be speaking a different language.

I floated my Ruger RSI, had to hog it out like a mother to get it from touching, and had to hog out the front metal cap thing, but it shoots MOA with loads it likes. Probably the first inch or two of the barrel is bedded. But this is all going to depend on the barrel diameter and stock diameter. Skinny barrel, fat stock, you can probably get it really well floated. Otherwise...you're into full length bedding or messing with pressure points.

Geez, my experience with "full-length" stocks is apparently somewhat different than some. Have owned quite a few over the years, and in general they've shot well enough to kill any sort of big game out to 300+ yards--and if somebody wants to shoot further, they're probably not going to choose a full-length stocked rifle.

Do you put the whole O-ring in flat with glue? What size O-ring do you use? Thanks!

I've had two. Both 98 military 7x57s shortened, tweaked, and stocked full length. the first one my father-in-law did back in the 60s or early 70s, and shot nicely until the fore end warped so badly it couldn't be saved. The miter box resolved the problem. The other one was done about 15yrs or so ago by my local smith for one of the guys. He had a stroke and asked me to work up some loads for it, which I did. When I gave it back to him, he sold it to me for a very nice price! It's not MOA, but it is minute of deer, and a joy to use.

The only one I have done I full length bedded in one step and wrapped the action tightly with surgical tubing and the fore end just enough to bring stock and fore arm together. It worked out fine. If doing over again I would free float the barrel first, then try a pressure point and then full length bed if the first two options didn't work. Just because this sequence is easier to do and doesn't require additional material to be removed.

On the Kilmanjaro type laminate I have seen some with a layer of graphite cloth on either side of the center veneer. The barrel channel can also be lined with graphite for additional stiffness.

On the Sako two piece "stutzen" rifle the fore end was floated and held in place by the sling band and muzzle cap. I have only shot two of these but both were very accurate, a 308 and a 375.

I use whatever size O-ring is in sync with the barrel diameter, but smaller/thinner is better.

Remove the barreled action from the stock, put the 0-ring around the barrel, install the barreled action back into the stock, The pressure between the barrel and stock will keep the O-ring in place without any adhesive. You may need to move the O-ring forward or backward on the barrel to find the sweet spot. When you get the O-ring where you want it, you can cut it a at the stock line and nobody but you will know that it is there.

I have found that installing the O-ring cuts down on fliers and although I may be in the minority, I don't like fliers.