Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Something is crooked....

Something is crooked�.

I have a Win Model 70 Classic in .338 Winchester. As it sits in it�s factory Tupperware stock, the barrel is slightly canted toward the right side of the stock. It�s been pillar bedded and free floated so it doesn�t touch but the barrel does not sit straight in the barrel channel. I didn�t worry about this. It shoots fairly well and I figured that I just happened to get a crooked stock. Life goes on.

However, twice since owning this rifle, I�ve had in my possession H-S Precision LA Winchester stocks for this rifle and both times the barrel pointing out the right side of the barrel channel was much more pronounced than in the Tupperware factory stock. Not just slightly, like you really had to pay attention but enough so that you knew it the instant you looked at it or sighted down the rifle. If I were not a loony I probably would go about my life and leave well enough alone. But�.that�s not the case, I�m starting to plan some mods for this thing and am worried that the action may be less than adequate.

What, in your estimation (experience) is the problem? Is there something crooked about the action (recoil lugs, etc?). Does the action need to be refaced square to the axis of the action? Or is the barrel shank cut crooked and shows this once tightened? Or is it something else?

Where it is pointing to the right no matter which stock you are using, then it is entirely possible that something is out of square at the barrel receiver junction. You would need to pull the barrel and run it and the receiver in a lathe to check for that. If the junction is a little out of square then it shouldn't take more than 1 thread, and all that goes with that, to correct it.