Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Is there any benefit from having a pressure point between barrel and forend?

Some rifles are or have been made over the years and even now with a pressure point on the barrel at the front of the stock.

Is there any benefit to be derived from this? Or should it be free floated all the way? Why do it if its an inferior way to assemble a rifle?

Sometimes it helps a lot.

It is remarkably difficult to make a truly rigid threaded joint (barrel to receiver) using conventional threads. Just two or so of the threads end up taking all the stress. One consequence of this problem is a rifle that shoots well most of the time, but throws occasional flyers.

About 10 pounds of upward pressure on the barrel at the tip of the stock pre-stresses the barrel-receiver joint.

Sometimes it results in better accuracy, especially with lightweight barrels.

I have two which came with pressure points. Neither shot to my expectations. One was a Ruger Mk II in 260, which I sent back to the factory for a laminate stock. When I sanded out the pressure pad from the new factory laminate stock, point of impact dropped ten inches at 100 yds. But accuracy was not improved from what it was with the pad, or with the original boat paddle stock.

The other was a Remington 700 ADL synthetic 243 which I took to the 'smith and had rechambered to 6mm-284 and a take off walnut stock put on it. He set it up with a pressure point as he said that was the most likely course to accuracy with the 700.

Once again, group size was larger than I expected. I sanded out the pressure point, but could see no effect on group size.

I have owned several sub moa factory sporter/hunting rifles. They were all free floated. But my sample of two supports my theory that nothing will help when you draw the wrong card and end up with the occasional schitty tube.

On the other hand, an adjustable pressure point on my Ruger #1B in 7mmSTW took it from a 2.5 moa rifle to a dependable sub moa hunter.

I have not found forend pressure points to improve any of my bolt guns. I have 5 or 6 I tried this on or had it and I removed it.
It is important in R#1s and R#3s --in my experience.

On bolt guns, I bed the rear lug, then the front lug and run a finger of bedding up a few inches of the forearm channel in contact with the barrel. If the gun doesn't shoot to my desires, I remove a 1/2" of the finger in the barrel channel and shoot again. Repeat if needed.
Works for me.
JMHO
Tim

Ruger usually refuses to replace any part of a returned rifle with any part not issued in the original. How did you get them to switch out a boat paddle for a laminate stock?

1B

I've seen a pressure point improve more than one Kimber rifle. I've also seen eliminating the pressure point on 700's and 77's deter accuracy....but I've seen it go the other way too. Those were all with factory barrels.

All and all, I believe there is some merit to it. I also believe each rifle is different and has its own personality.

I do know one thing -- if you're going to float a barrel, it better REALLY float. I've had headaches with barrels I thought were floated that weren't.

Depends; it's not inferior if done right & the barrel / stock combination likes it.

MM

michiganroadkill,

The rear lug?

I have found a pressure point at the tip of the forend to improve the accuracy of a few bolt-action rifles, but it's rare, and it's always been rifles very light contour barrels.
Even then I've found skim-bedding the pressure point usually works better than factory pressure points, at least in most rifles.

A very few of my bolt-actions have shot VERY well with the forend tip pressure point provided by the factory. One is a Remington 700 .17 Fireball, the cheapest model with the "matte" blueing and Tupperware stock. It shot 1/2" or a little more for 5-shot groups at 100 yards right out of the box, and didn't improve with a temporary free-float test.

Another is my Mark V Ultra Lightweight 7mm Weatherby Magnum. It groups three shots well under an inch with factory 160-grain Nosler Partition factory loads--though only if the skinny, fluted barrel is absolutely cold. After that shots can wander an inch or so, but that doesn't bother me much, since I don't normally shoot more than three times at any big game animal, and even if I did the discrepancy wouldn't be enough to make any difference, since I don't usually shoot at big game beyond 400 yards anyway.

If you don't have a great barrel and action combination, free-floating wont work as well as having a front pressure point.

Weatherbys have significant pressure up front.

My concern with that is that with wood stocks a drastic change in weather over several days has seemingly resulted in a change of impact.

John
How about rear tang??? Just checkin to see who had their coffee?
Although some tangs have a lug of sorts protruding down into the stock. They should have a sloppy fit, in my opinion, to allow for the action to adjust to temp.

Sometimes a gun will shoot well with a front pressure point, but will move poi from session to session. I believe this is mostly due to the forend wood moving (due to temp or moisture) and thus changing the "pressure" on the point. When floated or mostly floated, that has little effect from session to session.

jmho
Tim

I told them the rifle was not shooting to my expectations. Would they please check the barrel? And while it's there I would like you to put a nutmeg laminate on the gun.

They sent me a price quote, and I sent them the barreled action and a check.

The only hitch in the process was my gunsmith tuned trigger. They advised me that they could either ship the rifle back untouched, or they could toss the the trigger/safety assembly in the garbage and install new.

The trigger parts were cost comparable to shipping the rifle back and forth again, so I let them toss the trigger/safety and install the new LC-6 trigger assembly, which I also had to pay for, obviously.


But no, getting them to install the stock was no problem at all.

Thanks for the info.

I have two synthetic stocked rifles that came from the factory with pressure points. They appear to be good barrels because good handloads will put sub moa 5 shot groups or close as you could want for big game rifles.

No, I don't intend to mess with them at this stage but one of them I was considering dropping into a Boyds Laminate and the other into a B+C Medalist so was thinking I might cross the "float or pressure point" bridge at that time.

Denton, the rigidity issue per threaded barrels wasn't one I had known of so thanks for that particular gem.

- Bob

My sporterized Springfield 03 had the pressure point when I bought it; it shot great.


Then the screw that held the stock to the lug broke, so I free floated it; still shoots great.

Won't a pressure point change the barrel vibration? If the harmonics are screwed up by a combination, changing part of it will change the whole formula. The problem of wood changing with humidity and barrels getting hot change the pressure. I am told that is why Weatherby (with pressure point) is a great hunting rifle, but will climb and change POI when shot repeatedly as in benching it for a target match.

I've had 50 or so rifles and the only one that has been FL bedded is a 9.3x62 and only because it has the dang barrel band sling swivel doohickey.

Light or medium contours. No heavies. All save a couple shot more than well enough to keep and were bedded and FF. I'm sure some somewhere have benefited but you'd never know it by me. The sample includes Remington mountain rifles and Kimber 84's.

I'd rebarrel or sell one before doing the PP thing. Too much bad juju could happen-particularly since I shoot with a sling and or sticks.

The only consistent exception I know to that is the NULA/Forbes rifles. However, they don't actually have a "pressure" point. Instead the barrel is full-length bedded, and the stock is so stiff the contact stays consistent. Have shot a bunch of 'em and they're not only very accurate, but you can shoot 'em hot as hell and the groups normally don't increase in size after the first few shots. In fact, a friend of mine (another gun writer) tried a .30-06 and kept shooting it for something like 35 shots and they ALL went into around an inch. Not many big game rifles will do that!

Of course you are correct. I know the stock has to be stiff as &*^% or it wouldn't do as it does. The FF is only on the last 10" of barrel rather than 20" or so.

IME some rifles shoot better with barrel pressure, and on others it doesn't matter much. Also IME, I have seen a tendancy for rifles to shoot better with pressure using heavier bullet loads, but with light bullet loads it usually doesn't matter much either way. Maybe that's "not statistically significant" because I have only worked with a couple hundred or so rifles. I know some here have more experience, especially the professional 'smiths here. But that's what I've seen. I think there are advantages to free-floated barrels, so I usually try it on most rifles I get my grubs on, knowing I can easily install a pressure point back in the forend if floating doesn't work.

One thing I know that never works well is what I call "ambiguous pressure point." By that I mean a pressure pad that does not fit the barrell correctly and allows the barrel and forend to move in relation to each other. If you're gonna have a pressure pad, it better not let the barrel shift arouind or you'll never get the thing on target. When I build a pressure pad I usually shape it more-or-less like a V-block so the barrel cannot move.

And yes, a pressure pad will make the rifle shoot higher than a free-float.

I have had great luck with free floating but I had a new Model 70 Extreme Weather in .270 that I could not get rid of the 2 in one hole the third an 1 1/4" away mode. I tried this guy http://www.stocks-rifle.com/ for an adjustable pressure point. I was sceptacle but I thought with a money back gaurantee what the heck. The enbd result was great. I would turn the screw in one direction and the groups would open but they were at least an equilateral triangle for once. I turned the screw the opposite way and was pleased with consistent 3/4" groups. This is the only rifle that I have that free floating did not work on but being able to tune the rifle via the pressure point works well.