Non floating barrel

PAULT

Well-Known Member
Recently bought a ruger hawkeye to put nv on the barrel is not floating would it be beneficial to float it.
 
Not if it is shooting ok as it is. There is a scientific reason why some rifles have a resting point at the end of the stock but it is never guaranteed to work as it relies on the barrel oscillating in exact synchronisation with a given point when the bullet leaves the muzzle.

Personally I'm only happy when the barrel is freefloating but if its not broke don't fix it. You should try different ammo before this.
 
Not if it is shooting ok as it is. There is a scientific reason why some rifles have a resting point at the end of the stock but it is never guaranteed to work as it relies on the barrel oscillating in exact synchronisation with a given point when the bullet leaves the muzzle.

Personally I'm only happy when the barrel is freefloating but if its not broke don't fix it. You should try different ammo before this.

I think the only reason for a pressure bedding is to keep the possibly crooked stock in a position that the gap left and right of the barrel to the stock are equal. Cheap to do but looks quality. Many people think that the quality of a rifle can be measured by the size of the gap between barrel and stock. Small gap = higher quality , small gap and equal left right = even higher quality.

I think pressure bedding could work for a target rifle that is shot in a very consistent way. Hunting rifles and most target rifles benefit from a large barrel-stock gap and free floating. I even stopped bedding the first inch or so of the barrel.

edi
 
The Remington 700 is designed to have a pressure point under the barrel.
So is the No.1 MkIII Enfield and the No.4 Mik I and MkII.
So are a lot of rifles. Many custom rifles were full length bedded and shoot super groups.

It has become Internet lore that every rifle must be free floated, for two reasons.
1. Some big target rifles and military sniper rifles were made that way.
2. It is cheaper to manufacture, like front wheel drive on a car, so the manufacturers sold it as if it were something better.

In a sense, that is true. If you don't have the skill or precision manufacturing to fit the action and barrel into a stock, or it is going to be used in an environment which will mess with the stability, then a clearance around the barrel is better. But then you need a much better bedding of the action.
 
Southern, just have a look at what happens physically if you put a pressure bedded rifle on a bipod vs off a bag further back.
Pressure bedding is absolute bs on a hunting rifle. As I said might work on a target rifle.
A hunting rifle must shoot consistent, no matter what the shooting position.

I actually find that those who always recommend pressure bedding are those who are not in favour of longer shots...wonder why?
edi
 
ok, let's take a step back here! pressure bedding was/is used to obtain 'acceptable' accuracy. you will usually get decent groups, but rarely excellent groups. that is because of the obvious inconsistencies any interference in the barrel harmonics make.

any barrel can be made floating, and if bedded properly at the action end, it's likely that it will improve its accuracy and consistency as well.

Paul, if you are not happy with the grouping, yes, float it, but have it properly bedded, or do it yourself if you know how/can learn how.

don't float a barrel that's not properly supported at the action end, that's why you tend to hear stories of people floating barrels and grouping getting worse.

there's no barrels that are designed for bedding nor any designed for floating,nor receivers, they're all mostly made the same way, that's all a pile of fairy tale Sh*t.

there's no magical myths to this.

brithunter will of course provide us with a story of many rifles that were accurante and fully bedded, and he's right to do so, but the fact remains that pressure bedding is and always will be a way to resolve 'other' fundamental problems in a rifles construction such as poor receiver inletting, or concentricity between barrel and action, a misaligned bore drilling or bad chambering job, etc.

some contentious debaters may come and say that's why midland and PH's were often pressure bedded:stir:
 
We all know that putting pressure on a barrel will change parameters that change the POI. Changing the pressure therefore changes the POI. The elasticity of a wooden stock will change with changing temperature and moisture, a plastic stock can also change stiffness with changing temperatures, this alone leads to changing pressures. In pressure bedded rifles all stocks including alu/composite will transfer the pressure of a bipod or a forward rested rifle directly onto the barrel, in other words bend the barrel upwards. If you hold your rifle or lay it up around the action area one doesn't have that pressure....more changing pressures.

This all means that when you take your pressure bedded especially wooden stocked rifle out of the safe, you do not know for sure where your POI will be. Resting the rifle on the forend for a shot is also a bit of a lottery.

If the stock doesn't touch the barrel you don't have any of these problems. This is not witchcraft or voodoo.
edi
 
some contentious debaters may come and say that's why midland and PH's were often pressure bedded:stir:

Is it rather just because that is the way things were done at the time?

My 1982 SAKO AII had pressure-points in the forend, whereas my mid-'70s Parker-Hale target-rifle was built entirely free-floating except the first inch or two, which are bedded.
 
ejg,
That's the theory, but in reality, some totally unbedded barrels, especially thin ones, with vibrate too much and be inaccurate or accurate only with one load.

I have seen wood stocked riles with the barrel fastened firmly to a wooden stock, like the M-14, shoot 5/8 inch groups any time with military ball ammo and iron sights. Lots of stock AR-15A2 rifles will shoot way sub-MOA. I have an Enfield No.4 sniper rifle which has never shot a group worse than 3/4 inch with anything, without any adjustment or tuning, since the day it was tuned by Hollarnd & Holland in 1950.

Free floating just isn't right for every rifle. And if you buy a rifle built by a real craftsman at G&H, H&H, Paul Jaeger, Marholdt, Mannlicher, etc it will probably shoot tight groups, and it would be foolish to mess with their bedding job.
 
ejg,

I have seen wood stocked riles with the barrel fastened firmly to a wooden stock, like the M-14, shoot 5/8 inch groups any time with military ball ammo and iron sights. Lots of stock AR-15A2 rifles will shoot way sub-MOA.

Please... Neither M80 ball nor M855 will shoot sub-MOA from a test barrel let alone a service rifle. The acceptance criteria for M80 and M855 was significantly greater than 2 MOA from test barrels.

SS
 
Please... Neither M80 ball nor M855 will shoot sub-MOA from a test barrel let alone a service rifle. The acceptance criteria for M80 and M855 was significantly greater than 2 MOA from test barrels.

SS

He didn't say what distance. Could have been 25meters.
 
I'm with Southern on this one. I must have a dozen sub MOA hunting rifles that have fully bedded stocks. I have built barrel bedded target rifles where the barrel is screwed onto a block acting as a recoil lug. The entire action free floats except for a pad at the tang. (no tang screw, however) and the barrel and block fully glass bedded into the stock. They shot as well as the loads put through them.

I am old enough to know that free floating is not a requisite for accuracy. I have seen a SAKO rifle in 7mm Remington Magnum go from MOA to 1.75 MOA using the same LOT of factory ammo because the barrel was floated. The owner had read that free floating was a must for tight groups. He found out it wasn't so.

My son's Savage 30-06 is solidly bedded in the barrel channel. It shoots about 5/8" with full powered hunting loads. I wouldn't consider floating it. My Winchester Model 70, 308 is free floated and I was the one that made it so because, the bedding that was there originally wasn't consistent. The stock rubbed hard against one side of the barrel screwing with accuracy. In this case, free floating was the only way to make bedding consistent -which should be the ultimate starting point, anyhow.~Muir
 
Having worked in US military sniper programs for more than 20 years I will guarantee a rack-grade (or match for that matter) M14 will not shot sub-MOA with M80 ball. The ammunition itself will not do that.

SS
 
MARCBO,
I just last week shot some Radway Green 7.62x51 through a Steyr SBS .308 to dial in the scope. Two clicks to center, and I went ahead and shot 5 more in about 90 seconds, into a hole you could cover with a nickel, at a 100 yards.

That M-14 I mentioned was actually a friend's standard weight Springfield M1A which had a stock binding issue After about 20 rounds and 10 trips in and out of the stock, I shot new USGI Winchester ball ammo into a 5/8 inch group of sand bags at 100 yards.

Been shooting an M-14 or M1A off and on for over 40 years, and 30,000 rounds down the tube in a few years of it. I seen a lot good scores shot with M1 Garands at 600 with Korean and other GI ammo.

Rather than get in a snit about someone disbelieving that mass produced ammunition can shoot 1 MOA, my point was the examples of many rifles with non-floating barrels, like the M-14, AR-15s, etc, which do shoot sub-MOA a lot - and the targets at Camp Perry, Bisley, etc and the AMUs prove that, whatever the ammo.
 
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Every now and then one hears stories of a hunting rifle that got worse through free floating. Why I don't know and can only guess. The old sako that I had, had such a lousy barrel from day one that it didn't matter if she was free floating or pressure bedded she always shot bad. I know one thing for a fact that if you remove those old maybe shot out, crooked or not concentric bore barrels and replace with a modern quality barrel which is free floated.....the rifle will shoot guaranteed.
One big problem with pressure bedded rifles is that they will possibly shoot a very tight group when zeroing because you use the same hold within the group. The rifle will make the owner believe he has an accurate rifle. In the field later the question is if he can reproduce the exact same pressure on the barrel, if he can't ??? well she will be slightly off the mark. Some hunters know how to handle the handicap of such rifles and train themselves but will it always work?
I believe in physics not in voodoo or my buddy said etc.
I believe in a quality barrel, free floated, works every time.
edi
 
Might be an old wives tale but, I always understood that the lee enfield owed its accuracy with different ammo batches was that the barrel was tuned
so that the bullet exited on the upstroke of the harmonic wave. Faster bullets exited quicke rand lower , slow bullets exited at the top, thus elevation self compensated.
Probably rubbish, but i found it logical. Not that i ever shoot much beyond a couple of hundred yards
 
I don't know about all that with different bullet velocities being compensated for with harmonics, but The American Rifleman magazine (NRA) had a long article about 40 years ago on how to tune the .303 Enfields in the forend.

I know that my most accurate No. 4 shoots right to the sights out to 600 yards.

Since a gazillion bulleyes have been fired at 600, 800, and 1,000 yards with iron sights, and heavy ones, like the Redfield International and Parker Hale, out on the end of barrels, I think that a rifle, once properly set inletted and bedded, is not so sensitive as we might believe. Some synthetic stock, like the Rem 700, with a forend support in it, could become a problem with a bipod right under that point, especially if it is torquing the stock right there. The mass of a moderator could have a very positive effect, by damping vibration frequency and amplitude, just like a pressure point.

Rifles are individual - or rifle models or designs are individual - and some do better floating, some not.
 
PKL
Sorry to dissapoint you but I have two Rugers and both are deliberately pressure pointed at the forend. It is the Ruger design. I in my wisdom removed the pressure points and the groups generated were awful so I had to put bedding back and by trial and error got back to square one. I think my point is that if you do not know what you are talking about keep your theories to yourself.
 
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