Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Learned something!

So I am a hunter, but I shoot more than the average hunter around here. I shoot probably 500+ rounds if rifle ammo a year ( Before I reloaded it was a box or so, proof that reloading doesn't save money!!:) I have a 260 Rem that I owned from new in 2003. It is a Ruger M77 MKII, and I am sure you have heard how they are sometimes a bit finicky at best. I usually managed to get a load that shot acceptably (under 1.5 @100), and killed probably 20 deer with the rifle. Most of where I hunt is 10-80 yards. Recently decided to start practicing longer range with my 30-06 and really liked it. I decided to tackle my Ruger and see if I can make it shoot with acceptably accuracy out to 400 yards or so. So I started again working up loads using 129 SST bullets.

Started struggling again, occasionally I would get a decent group, but average was 2-3 inches at 100 yards. What really annoyed me was that my chrono numbers looked good, E.S of 8-20 or so, but still couldn't get a decent group. Talked to my gunsmith, and decided to mess with the stock first. I had a Boyd's Laminate stock for the gun, so I went and sanded the barrel channel until I had good clearance, then sealed the area. Put the gun back together and went and shot again.

Took a load I had tried just a few days earlier, using 39.8 grains of Big Game. With the factory stock groups were from 2.5-3.5 inches. After the other stock was put on, the exact same load went into .8-1.8 inches. Quite a difference! So just floating the barrel on that gun really helped a lot! No wonder John is s proponent of floating the barrel!

Felt good to get that done, wonder why I waited so long to do it?!

I hear you, I just went through that with old reliable, M70 pre 64 fwt. 06. I think 2 years of drought and stupid low humidity here finally got to the formerly stable 60 year old walnut. In frustration, after blaming me, scope, copper bullets, earth rotation wobble, I floated it...miracle, old reliable is back.

I'm wondering why you aren't glass bedding it? That is the first thing I do to a rifle. Just sayin. Some guys are very slow learners. Just think of all that ammo and money you burnt up in that crap shooting rifle. If you are wanting to shoot 400+ yards, what you have is not going to cut it until you fix a few things. Trigger also being one of them. Bedding is a must for consistent accuracy though.

Bedding is next on my list, trigger already reworked to 2.5 lbs. Just surprised how much difference free floating made.

I actually forget people do not do trigger work, all my rifles get the triggers reworked or Timneys installed. The only exception is my Vanguard 30-06 with the 2 stage trigger, and my 358 Win that already shoots 5/8 at 100 yards. That one will never be a long range gun!

Yep, bed, float and trigger. Good optic and work up load.

This has me curious, I wonder if anybody has ever tested bedding vs not bedding, and would that not be different for different rifles? Esp thinking of my Ruger, where the recoil lug contacts the magazine box? (I think it does) Not sure where I would bed it? In front of the recoil lug? Tang area?

Everything here gets bedded, no matter what it is.

But a few years back, I did the test you mention. It was a bone stock late 70s, 700 ADL in 243. For the test, the trigger was replaced with 1.5lb. Shilen and a 6.5-20 Leupold mounted in bedded bases and lapped/bedded rings. Hand loading gear was a standard Redding two die set, brass was virgin Winchester with no prep work other than chamfering the necks and bullets were the Nosler 95 gr. hunting style BTips. In short...pretty representative of a standard setup that anyone could duplicate. Windflags were used for all tests.

With my best hand loads, it averaged 1-1/4" five shot groups with three shot groups of 7/8".

Next, I did a stress free pillar bedding job and reshot the previous best load. The new average was right at 5/8" for five shot groups. Three shot groups were in the .450-.460 range.

As a control, I reshot several 'before' loads that weren't the best performers. All of them showed the same percentage of improvement post bedding.

Good shootin' -Al

Stress free pillar bedding is a new one to me, although I faintly remember maybe seeing a link to it before. Was there a discussion on the fire concerning it? Thanks

I took a Model 70 in to a local gun shop to see what they'd give me for it. Their gunsmith checked it out and asked me if it had accuracy problems. I said no, it shoots MOA.

So he says, "well, why did you have to glass bed it?" True story.

Have turned many rifles, especially "traditional" wood-stocked bolt-actions that wouldn't shoot every well, into very accurate rifles by the addition of a plastic bread-bag tab (shim) just behind the recoil lug. This does several things:

1) It "lifts" the barrel enough to free-float it. While free-floating has been around since at least the 1930s, it wasn't common among factory rifles until far more recently. (Sometimes real floating requires more than one bread-tab, but in my experience not often.

2) It doesn't change the "all-original" value of an older rifle, since the there's no permanent change to the stock.

3) It's easy and cheap to do, and often very effective. A good example was a pre-1964 Model 70 Winchester Featherweight in .308--which was the ONLY chambering in the Featherweights during their first 3 years. It resulted in half-inch, 3-shot groups at 100 yards with the right loads. Otherwise the rifle rarely shot 1" groups.

Just did the same thing with an even more valuable pre-'64 Featherweight in .270 Winchester. Am willing to bet, based on past experience, that it will work at least as well.

But have also epoxy-bedded a bunch of rifles over the decades. Usually it helps considerably, but don't consider it (or pillars) essential to super accuracy. My very first example was a Remington 700 ADL in .270 Winchester, which after epoxy-bedding and free-floating, would regularly put three 150-grain Hornady Spire Points into around an inch--at 300 yards.

Know several custom makers of super-accurate "modern" custom rifles who don't believe pillars add anything to the equation, depending on the structure of the stock--and sometimes weaken the stocks of hunting rifles enough to cause problems.

It seems to me that all "glass" bedding does is make up for issues with the inletting. If the inletting is done in such a way that the action isn't stressed and doesn't move around in the stock, hogging it out and filling it with epoxy seems unlikely to achieve anything, at least on a hunting rifle. I wouldn't be glass bedding a rifle unless I'd tried it out first, and indeed of all my rifles, only one currently sits in epoxy bedding. I have or have had quite a number which consistently shoot five rounds into under 1 moa - some consistently well under - without it.

Floating the barrel's another thing though, especially if the fore-end can't be relied upon to stay in the same place with changes in the weather or the way it is held. Sealing/waterproofing also helps

John, that's certainly possible with some stocks. Each stock and action has it's own quirks and the one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work. In some of the super light stocks, there's nothing but foam between the bottom of the receiver inlet shell and the outer shell of the stock. Since a pillars main purpose is to prevent compression of the stock, I do those with a pillar that goes in from the top and butts against the inside of the outer shell. On some stocks, a piece of .014 wall seamless 303 stainless tubing gets used. That keeps the outer diameter small enough to not remove any excess material, while still giving the anti-compression we want. The Model 7's with the small rear tang screw is an example of this....though generally I enlarge the tang to accept the standard 1/4-28 screw size.

The thin walled/large I.D. pillars are very helpful on factory polymer stocks. Using these, and stiffening up the area under the receiver, can give pretty good gains.

In terms of poor bedding jobs having been done on them, Model 70's top the heap by a landslide. Close behind is anything with an action screw that goes directly into the recoil lug.

If the gun's accuracy is suitable for it's use, and depending on the ability of it's owner to understand the concept and do the work, it's sometimes better to leave things alone rather than risk doing a poor job.

My 2 cents worth over a cup of Sulawesi this morning.

Good shootin' -Al

'In terms of poor bedding jobs having been done on them, Model 70's top the heap by a landslide. Close behind is anything with an action screw that goes directly into the recoil lug.'

Hi Al,

Yep, this matches my experience!

Thanks,
John

In terms of poor bedding jobs having been done on them, Model 70's top the heap by a landslide. "

What is to bed on a pre64 M70 Fwt?

The barrel of mine was fully floated and all it needed was a little Arkansas stone on the trigger and it was sub MOA with factory ammo.

"Have turned many rifles, especially "traditional" wood-stocked bolt-actions that wouldn't shoot every well, into very accurate rifles by the addition of a plastic bread-bag tab (shim) just behind the recoil lug."

I've done this with expired credit cards. I cut them to fit the area behind the recoil lug to match the area. Sometimes I apply mild heat to the tab for actions that are rounded. makes it easier to conform to the action. Works for me.
PJ

Then it may (or may not) have been free-floated by somebody else already.

The first Featherweights (which were chambered only in .308 Winchester during the first three years) were "bedded" with what Winchester termed a "free-floating barrel," though some gun writers of the era called a "full-floating" barrel when they reviewed the new rifle. Some reported 5-shot groups of up to 2-3 inches at 100 yards.

This was because Winchester's definition of "free-floating" at the time was the barrel BARELY clearing the forend. Consequently in many Featherweights the barrel could vibrate enough to touch the forend when fired, which results in "fliers." This
is why truly free-floated barrels do NOT have such minimal clearance.

I was lucky enough to purchase an original .308 Featherweight a few years ago which had NOT been "bedded," and it shot very much like the reviewers in the 1950s reported--very erratically. This was because a dollar bill (though not a doubled-over dollar bill) would barely fit between the barrel and forend. It was easy to compress the tip of the forend against the barrel by grabbing it with my right hand--which is one of my basic tests for whether a barrel has been truly free-floated.

Which is why I put a bread-bag "spacer" under the front of the receiver, which resulted in NOT being able to grab the tip of the forend and press it against the barrel. This resulted in the rifle shooting most ammo, whether handloads or factory loads, into an inch or less at 100 yards.

Have seen this in more than one "original condition" pre-'64 Featherweight. My latest is a .270, purchased about 6 weeks ago, which left the factory the first year Featherweights were chambered in .270. It had the same sort of "bedding" system--which is why I installed a bread-bag shim even before range-testing the rifle. Haven't had a chance to do so yet, but wasn't going to waste ammo with the original bedding.

This is also why Winchester REALLY free-floated the barrels on the Model 70s introduced in 1964, which caused many gun writers and Winchester fans to whine a LOT. Yet the new rifles consistently shot very accurately, as reviews of that area stated--even when the reviewer bitched about the larger gap between the barrel and forend.

You may have gotten lucky and acquired a rifle where the forend warped AWAY from the forend as the stock aged, or somebody may have sanded the forend channel larger before you acquired the rifle. But after having owned several original-condition pre-'64 Featherweights, can confidently state that your rifle is unusual.

Have written about all this in a chapter of THE BIG BOOK OF GUN GACK III.

John, a coworker of mine has a '70's vintage Model 70 FWT in 308W. It would shoot about 1.5" three shot groups (factory ammo) with the first shot always being the one that was 'out'. Barrel channel was adequately open from the factory.

About 15 years ago, he asked me to look at it. Doing a stress free pillar bedding job with the barrel floated a bit more helped a bunch with three shot groups just under 1" but the 1st round flier was still there. I tested it with a clean bore and a dirty bore but the first shot 'out' tendency remained the same. Still a darn good improvement and more than adequate for his hunting needs.

I don't normally bed any portion of the barrel shank forward of the action face but with the FWT barrel profiles being what they are, I decided to go back and add a bedding pad to try it. That did the trick. It now shoots nice, round, 5/8" 3 shot groups with the first shot going right in with either a clean or dirty barrel.

Since then, that gun has worked for dozens of white tails, a bunch of mulies, antelope, caribou a couple of black bear and a cow elk. It probably hasn't killed any more game than it would have before the 'tune up', but his confidence in it went up big time. With a little 2.5-8 Leupold on it, it's a dandy little rig. It's scratched and dinged...the way a good tool gets with honest use.

Good shootin' -Al

Al,

I wonder about whether the barrel/action thread connection in that rifle was adequate.

Sometimes it isn't. A while back one of local gun stores had a stainless/synthetic Winchester Model 70 in .223 WSSM for sale at such a bargain price that I asked if it would be OK to use my bore-scope to take a close look at the throat--which didn't look bad with the naked it. With the scope it looked a little worn, but not much, so I bought it--though they told me I could never, ever bring it back again....

Also bought some factory ammo, dies, etc. It wouldn't group much under three inches with either the factory stuff or handloads. I tried every bedding trick I knew without any improvement, so called Charlie Sisk--and he couldn't think of anything else to try.

So I shipped it to him for a rebarrel job with a faster twist than the factory 1-10 (which was one of the big mistakes Winchester made with the .223 WSSM, apparently because this was early in the fast-twist .224 centerfire era and they believed anything faster than 1-10 wouldn't shoot lighter bullets well.)

Anyway, when Charlie removed the factory barrel off, it just about fell out when he'd barely started turning it. The thread connection was so loose, the barrel was barely hanging onto the action, so could wobble considerably when fired. It shot great with the replacement Lilja he put on, because he made sure the threads on the barrel and action matched. Of course, it grouped very accurately with a wide variety of bullets of any weight from around 40 grains to 75....

Since then I've often guessed that one reason forend tip-pressure sometimes helps a rifle, or a bedding pad on the rear of the barrel, is due to a somewhat loose barrel/action connection.

John, I think that's entirely possible.

I used to help out the late Stan Ware (SGR Custom Rifles) when he was backed up. Pillars, bedding...whatever needed to be done. Stan had a poor shooting Model 70 FWT 223 in to be rebarrelled to .17 Remington with a Lilja barrel matching the FWT contour. As soon as I cracked the barrel loose, the thing wobbled around like a Saturday night drunk in Dodge City. The face of the receiver and the barrel were both fretted severely. The threads had virtually no load on them and the barrel/receiver face junction was carrying all the load. Further checking found the receiver threads to be both excessively large in diameter (relative to the barrel threads) and extremely tapered.

With the receiver threads squared away and the new barrel fitted correctly, it shot crazy-good as a .17 Remington.

Good shootin'. -Al