Free floating a barrel

bighornboy

bighornboy

New member
I have a synthetic stock model 70 that needs a float job, and I plan on buying a syn. Ruger hawkeye in the near future that i would like to also get work done on. Is free floating something that I can do myself, or is it best left up to a proffessional gunsmith? If I can do it myself any tips? Also I keep hearing that you do not need to bed the action with synthetic stocks, is this true?
 
Some of the more inexpensive synthetic stocks have front upward pressure on the barrel. Various reasons for this can be from a cheap stock that flexes if not locked in the front to a caliber that the factory believes shoots better with front pressure because of a thin whippy barrel. They dint really care if you have a one inch gun or a one hole gun. They just want to move product. Also, your other question about synthetic not needing bedding - is not necessarily true. Wood or synthetic, each are made to fit the product line and not your particular gun. Identify your problem areas and go at it with heavy sandpaper wrapped around a round piece of wood or metal. When a dollar bill will slide from front to the back recoil lug after the action is tightened, see how it shoots. Brownells makes glassing kits that are fairly easy to use if you decide to go that direction. I have done about 10 myself and sometimes clearing the channel works fine and sometimes it takes a major glass job to get it right. Just dint think you are going to get a factory barrel to shoot like a benchrest gun, because you will be disappointed. I am sure others will chime in here and critique my answer, but to each their own.
 
The first question I would ask is why does your Winchester need free floating? Does it have an accuracy problem?

To check out if free floating a barrel will cure an accuracy problem pull the barreled action out of the stock and place one or more old credit cards under the barrel just in front of the recoil lug. Reinstall the barreled action. You want enough lift on the barrel to pass the dollar bill test va ken suggested.

Some rifles just do better with a little upward pressure on the forend. Usually a rifle will do well with around 7 pounds pf pressure if it does need this.

Do the same credit card check, but put one or two credit cards between the barrel and the forearm at the end of the forearm and tighten down the action screws.

Shooting a rifle this way will give you some idea as to where an accuracy problem lies.
 
Using a dollar bill to check for barrel clearance is useless. You need enough clearance so that the barrel will not contact the stock when fired. How much clearance is needed will vary widely according to how stiff the stock and barrel are but will always be a lot more than the thickness of a dollar bill. The way to check for enough clearance is to hold the rifle by the barrel and smack the stock firmly, then hold the rifle by the stock and smack the barrel. If the stock and barrel make any contact, you do not have enough clearance. If you have a flimsy stock it can easily require over 1/8" of clearance.

Jack
 
That's interesting Jack. Usually the credit card test will give between 1/32 and 1/16 inch with a doubled or two layer card. I haven't found the need for more than that, but I've found wood stocks and laminated stocks more rigid than some of the new plastic stocks on the market and I've always preferred them over plastic or synthetic.

I've been out of the gunsmith business for quite a few years now, but the last Remington I had with a stock factory plastic/synthetic stock was very very flexible and would certainly not pass your smack the stock test.

When I was building rifle's back in the late 70's I was using Brown precision glass stocks and they were not near as flexible as some of the new injection molded stocks I'm seeing today.

One of the things I see a lot now-a-days is folks wanting to do all the accurizing before even identifying any problems. Glass bedding, piller bedding, new triggers, new stocks and a load of other devices being added before any baseline accuracy testing is even done.

Not that those things won't usually improve the accuracy of most guns, but lots of folks take a new gun out without even adjusting the trigger and expect sub inch groups with heavy triggers. That's probably one of the best arguments for the new Savage's out of the box accuracy is coming off the line with the accu-trigger.

But back to bighornboy's question. If the synthetic stock is one of the injection molded stocks coming out of many makers today it may not be possible to bed the action as many of these stocks are made of a material that modern bedding materials simply won't adhere to. I see that some are using cast in aluminum bedding blocks and in the case of Savage cast in piller's to alleviate some of those problems. Free floating if not already done is one of the few things that are left to do.
 
I have bedded a lot of the injection molded stocks with no problem. If you use a coarse dremel tool burr to relieve them the bedding sticks just fine. If you get a coarse enough finish a mechanical lock will hold it all together without any actual chemical bond.

Jack
 
Jack---I feel your answer is very misleading, if not untrue. We are talking huntin' rifles here, not benchrest guns. If you take the typical Rem, Savage, Ruger, bolt action and bed it to 1-1.25" past the recoil lug, it will often float itself in a factory stock or say a "flimsy" stock like a Bell and Carlson Carbelite. You can easily sometimes have 3/16"-1/4" of clearance at the forend tip and if you squeeze the barrel and stock both in your hand together, they will touch, no doubt. However, if you do the same say 5" farther back, closer to where you would hold your hand, they will not squeeze together nor touch upon firing, or resting the rifle.

BHB---to better answer your question, the factory "tupperware" on most factory synthetic rifles is usually junk. Any kind of bedding usually helps most, but not necessarily all. As Idaho stated, find out if it needs it first. Free-floating a barrel can definitely be done by most without much trouble. I've found some guns do actually benefit from forend tip pressure. Mostly Rem M7's. I'd personally not bother bedding a "tupperware" stock, as the only decent ones I've seen are on Sako's. The rest can be replaced with much better stocks for not a ton of money...Just my opinion....2MG
 
Jack I've seen that done along with guys drilling and putting in some steel rods to help with the mechanical locks. I've even seen folks put chunks of fishing rod in the forends to add some stiffness. I've always gravitated to wood or laminated wood and most of my experience with synthetic stocks was before the injection molded stocks became available.

Got to admit to some bias to the injection molded stocks. The one Remington I had was a 700 ML and that stock was as limp as a noodle. You could bend the forearm down enough to leave a 1/4 inch gap or more at the end of the barrel.

I've been out of the gunsmith business now for a number of years and still have friends bring guns over to fix. I see a number of Savage and Remington and Ramline stocks that have always seemed kinda un-fixable to me at least. The amount of glassbed required to fill all the big square holes just seemed like to much of an investment to put into such low dollar stocks, though putting in pillers would certainly seem a good idea. You can see the bias here I guess.

Anyway I've replaced several of those with either layed up glass and kevlar stocks or laminated stocks with usually good results.
 
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I picked up a Howa 1500 22-250 from a disgusted neighbor recently. He claimed it didn't have more than a couple hundred rounds through it but wouldn't hold a 4" group at 100 yds and sold it to me for $200.

I plan to write up a full report with pics (assuming I can "fix" it), but I'll tell you the Boyds wood stock required almost 1/4" of relief to stop slapping the barrel. I wouldn't actually take it down that far normally but did it for illustration.

Normally I'll stiffen a stock just so it doesn't need so much relief to keep the stock from slapping the barrel. I've found almost every one I've done needed stiffening with the exception of layed up glass stocks (never worked with a laminate).

Though I'm not a fan and wouldn't recommend buying one, I've had no problem with the cheap plastic stocks (not with floating or bedding them anyway). As Jack said just rough the heck out of the material and the epoxy takes an excellent mechanical lock.

No need to use expensive bedding compound for stiffening (or bedding for that matter). You can pick up very high quality epoxy resin for $55-65 a gallon depending on the type needed, which will last you forever if rifle stocks is all you're doing. Just don't buy your epoxy from a gun store, lol. No need to completely fill those "big square holes" either. Use foam as a filler and epoxy over (and under) it.
 
I don't think doing the work is a problem. I just don't know if it's worth it on some of the junk factory synthetics. For the record, I've never tried to fill the big "holes" with bedding compound either.......grin
 
My first effort to fix a "plastic" stock was the stock on the original XP-100 pistol..

Supposedly made of some super plastic, I found it no stronger than the junk they make kids toys out of.

By the time I got the barrel "floated", there was nothing left of the forend, so I gave up and bought a wood stock blank.

I hope that you guys are NOT implying that the synthetic stocks made by H-S Precision fall into this group... they are like granite.

.
 
Leon I used to use a radial arm saw and make three lengthwise cuts in plain wood forends from near the tip of the forend and run then into the recoil lug stock. One cut verticle the other two at about a 30 degree angle on either side of the center cut.

These cuts only the width of a 10 inch radial saw blade and perhaps 1/2 to 3/4 inch deep depending on the angle and filled with acra-glass didn't use much glassbed, but tended to stiffen up stocks like your describing.

I was in Alaska where stock warpage was a problem due to the extreme weather changes and this was an answer to that.

Laminated stocks are actually synthetic stocks with the wood acting as a binder for the epoxy. They can be extremely stiff because of that construction.

Catshooter I wasn't implying that about the HS Precision stocks. The stocks I was talking about were the injection molded plastic stocks on many of the Remington rifles. These stocks can be purchased from Remington for under a hundred bucks and seem to be made from some kind of cast plastic that seems to be very flexible.

This stock materail also resists bonding to any of the glassbed compounds I've used. Like Jack said about the only way to glassbed these stocks is with some kind of mechanical lock. Even when bedded this way stock flexing can be a problem, thus some of the stiffining things like placing pieces of fibreglass fishing rod lengthwise in the forarm to aid in stiffness is being done.
 
Sounds like the problem my gun is having is from the flexible stock. But it's not the up and down that seems to be the problem, it's the right and left. On the right side of the barrel, there is about an 1/16" gap, but on the left side, I can't force a piece of paper between the barrel and the stock, the stock touches the barrel almost all the way back. Last time I sighted it in, I was having problems adjusting the L and R, especially after the gun warmed up a bit(the barrel seems a little thin). The gun always has a tendency to shoot to the right, I can't get it to stay centered. I adjust and readujust my scope but it will throw most bullets to the right. I will bet $ that the next time I take it to the range, I will have to bring it back to the left, sometimes up to a couple inches. If I take a little off the left side, should this solve my problem?
 
One thing is for certain; you can never have too much clearance. With high end competition target rifles it is becoming more common to just cut the top of the stock off flat forward of the recoil lug. 1/4" below the barrel is normal. This not only guarantees no contact but promotes barrel cooling. I have been building across-the-course rifles like this for at least 15 years and I did not start the trend.

Jack
 
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I have bedded a lot of the injection molded stocks with no problem. If you use a coarse dremel tool burr to relieve them the bedding sticks just fine. If you get a coarse enough finish a mechanical lock will hold it all together without any actual chemical bond.

Jack



I will also take a drill bit and drill small holes at an angle to the centerline of the stock in the action inlet and use a small cutter to put undercuts along any vertical surfaces exposed to the epoxy to provide a "mechanical retention" of the epoxy to the stock in case the two materials do not bond well to each other. It seems to have worked well to hold the epoxy to the plastic on the 3 "tupperware" Savage stocks I have.
 
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