whats the best way to stiffen the forend on my pro hunter

dannystyer

New Member
Hi guys mega new to this was wondering the best way to sort out my pro hunter forend been reading the forum and it has got me worried should the sportsman sort this out for me???
 
i have been through 300 round of prohunter madness, its now all sorted.

brief history as follows (you can view my previous posts for more details).

got prohunter mountain .243 with T8 and S&B 8*56 july 2006.
my first centrefire.
started out ok, but roaming groups, always sub 1".
the some big jumps from zero (about 4") but still grouping.
put 60 shots through without cleaning from new
fitted second bipod stud, further back to reduce flex. still use that one now.
gun went back to sportsman, had absorber pad removed (its under the barrell at front).
it also had 3" copper fused to the rifling, sportsman fully de coppered.
when returned it was shooting excellently, but after time it started wandering again. i was using boresnake.
i did used to leave it in a hot car whilst at work, and use it at lunchtime, this may have effected it.
i then filled the front end with acraglass, but havent bedded the action. there is still flex but it doesnt touch the barrel.

its now shooting cock on, sub 1" all day long ( apart from when it gets hot!)

i'm not sure what actually caused it, but what i would advise to you is to check all of the obvious, and then make sure you cleaning regime is sorted. my current cleaning regime is ... never clean it unless absolutely necessary. if you clean it, fully de copper it (takes 2 nights). never use a boresnake. first shot out from clean flies 1" out, then its cock on all the way. if you dont do a full de coppper- it takes about 10 shots to settle down. stay away from the boresnake. i havent cleaned it for weeks.

sportsman were very good and even said they would change it for something else if i wasnt happy. Brian down there did the floating for me.

hope this is of some use.
 
Hi,
Ive had my prohunter for just over a year now and got fed up with the wavy fore end, and ive just had the honey comb section filled in with devcon steel putty, and the gap made bigger between the barrel and stock, its added some weight but it does group pretty darn good out to 200,

it wasnt that expensive either, £150-, i could of done it myself but lacked the confidence :confused:

swede
 
Are these two mark 1 or 11 Pro Hunters? I haven't had a shred of a prob with my mk11...maybe it's lurking and waiting to strike?
 
Pete E,

Thanks for showing your concern, as i should have mentioned yes they did bed the action in for that price, i think they said it was £70- to just do the fore end, but i decided to get the whole lot done, and am glad i did,

swede
 
Drew,
no i havnt mate, next time i take it apart il take sum though, mines a mk2 by the way, the problem i had was with the added weight of a reflex mod and bi-pod, ment that the barrel would occasionally touch the stock when shooting off the bi-pod and throw shots off as a result.,

swede
 
Two ways to approach, either free out the channel by a good bit, maybe even 2mm gap near the front so that the stock never touches even under
a bit of load and bed the action.
or
make the front end stiff as hell so that a small gap around the barrel doesn't touch under a bit of load and also bed the action.

One way of stiffening the front without too much weight is to first dremel the inside of the forend rough. Mix styrofoam pebbles (make out of aeroboard) and thin epoxy resin then fill void. Cover top with a few layers of thin glass in one go.
But I would also open the channel generously.
edi
 
Listening to all this I'm glad I didn't go for a Pro Hunter Mountain Mk II in the end. I think it's criminal that a new rifle - especially a Mannlicher - should come out of the box & not do the business without all this mucking about with the bedding & stiffening the foreend. Not to mention the waste of ammo getting it right.

To those on the site who warned me off - many thanks.
 
thanks for all your advice guys will let you know how i did!!!
just to let you all know i did my dsc 1 shooting test on sat 8th and after bore snaking my pro mountain 2 first check group was awful nearly had a heart attack :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: after about 6 rounds it settled back down but will take it to the sportsman for a chat methinks ,,,,oh yeah i passed the course along with pheasant sniper 1!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
you could just try removing the absorber yourself, its item 6 in the explosed view in the handbook, the piece of rubber at the front of the forend which touches the barrel. thats what sportsman removed for me.

also worth checking how you hold the gun whilst on bipod. do you support butt with left hand or do you hold forend with left hand? the latter will put more pressute on stock and cause flex.

i still have this niggling thought that my problems were caused by my cleaning regime, and not by the gun itself. good luck.
 
Rifle manufactures are in a bit of a dilema, they are using a low glass content injection moulding plastic for their cheap plastic stocks. The stiffness of this material is not great. The customer doesn't want a huge gap between barrel and forend, but it should be free floating. Technically this all contradicts. It will not work. Thats why the americans pressure bed the forend. They say its better to have a given pressure than the european way of sometimes free floating, sometimes a bit touching and sometimes a lot touching. They are right too.

If we jump over our shadow and just sand the hell out of our forend and give it some room our problems could be over.
Just look at how much gap competition rifles have.
edi
 
My pro mountain is now behaving OK, it took a little work to find the ammo/bullet combination it likes but I now am inside 2" at 100 yards off a bipod and have not done anything to the rifle.

I will continue to try and improove on that and I may stiffen the stock myself as it wont harm anything.

I will wait a bit though as still less than 100 rounds through it.

Jerry
 
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