Barrel floating/setting

[7mmfan]

One more for you gun guys today! Apparently I need lots of help. I have a 7mm-08 that I have never had success getting consistent groups with. Many different loads, no success. I guy at the range today pointed out that my barrel was not free floating but was in contact with a "hump" in the stock in the front 1/3 of it. He said eliminate the hump and the gun will shoot better.

Is there any value to this thought? I took the barrel out and looked at the stock. I sanded it down a bit and made the hump smaller, but there is still contact. Before I get to serious about this I want to make sure I'm not going to screw something up by keeping on with the sanding.

I also noticed when I took the barrel out today, that one of the little shims that goes between the action and the stock is missing, causing the gun to tighten down odd. Should I try to track down another shim or just eliminate the one I have so everytihng sits appropriately.

Gun is Model 700 Mountain Rifle, 7mm-08. I love this little gun and really want it to be a shooter, so any help you guys can pass my way would be appreciated.

[Karl Blanchard]

Lots of guys on here that know about a 100 times more than me but if you have enough gap between barrel and stock on the opposite side from the hump, you should be able to use a brass hammer and tap the recoil lug in the opposite direction of the side making contact and that will center the barrel in the channel of the stock, thus eliminating any contact points.  I had to do this on my Remington 700.

[Bob33]

The litmus test for free floated barrels is a dollar bill. Run it from the muzzle to the chamber. If free floated it will not encounter any resistance.

Conventional wisdom is that light barrels need fore end pressure to shoot well. In my opinion, that's often true but necessarily so. Every gun is different. I prefer free floated barrels because they will shoot more consistently.

You can free float the barrel by sanding down any portions of the stock that touch.  You literally need just a "paper thin" gap. If the gun shoots well free floated, you're golden. If not, try adding a business card or two under the fore end. If that makes the gun shoot well, you can add back a bit of pressure with glass bedding compound.

[Biggerhammer]

Every factory Remington I have owned gets the forend "Hump" sanded out right away. I remove the barreled action from the stock, take a properly sized wood dowel, broom handle piece anything about the proper size to fit in the barrel channel. Then wrap it with sand paper and open it up so nothing touches the barrel. It has worked for me time and time again.

[RadSav]

Floating the barrel seems to be everyone on the internets favorite accuracy tip.  Float, float, float and more float seems the common end all answer of internet experts.  But in most cases the gun manufacturer put that pressure point in there for a reason.  That being that it was one heck of a lot cheaper to add a pressure point than to bed the rifle properly.  Especially on todays cheap flexible plastic stocks and light weight barrels.  Free float a barrel and not address the bedding issue and your bound to have a gun just as bad.  Though if it shoots like a shotgun now what do you have to lose

I have never seen much improvement to simply removing the pressure point and nothing else.  In fact, with Rugers I almost always see groups get worse when doing so.  As a result I never remove someones barrel pressure band without also bedding the action too.  Say what you will about floating, trigger creep, trigger pull weight and blue printing the action.  But, in my opinion the foundation of all great shooting rifles is a good bedding job and works out from there.  Without that solid foundation pressure points are quite often a necessary evil.

[Biggerhammer]

Bottom line when it comes to a factory Tupperware stock. The minimum one should do if the rifle doesn't shoot as well as expected, is to up grade to a stock with a aluminum bedding block. Then the skies the limit from there.

[7mmfan]

I hate to replace the stock, as its a beautiful laminate stock. I am going to try sanding down the pressure point first. As was said, what do I have to lose, it already groups like crap!

If this doesn't work, I guess I will have to address the bedding issue next. Don't really have the money to make substantial investments into a new stock or smithing at this point, so hopefully sanding it works!

[RadSav]

I hate to replace the stock, as its a beautiful laminate stock. I am going to try sanding down the pressure point first. As was said, what do I have to lose, it already groups like crap!

If this doesn't work, I guess I will have to address the bedding issue next. Don't really have the money to make substantial investments into a new stock or smithing at this point, so hopefully sanding it works!

If it is a laminated stock I'd certainly go for it.  Might be the best wood stock Remington makes so I agree...keep it!  Use the method Biggerhammer mentioned.  It's easy enough to add it back if you need to.  Be sure to seal the stock in the area where you remove the hump.  Inside the barrel channel just about any urethane type coating will do.

I also noticed when I took the barrel out today, that one of the little shims that goes between the action and the stock is missing, causing the gun to tighten down odd. Should I try to track down another shim or just eliminate the one I have so everytihng sits appropriately.

I've had a few Mountain rifles and I do not remember action shims.  Maybe Biggerhammer can answer whether they now install shims from the factory.  Seems odd to me unless they knew the inletting was screwed up to begin with.  Are you the first owner of this rifle or did you buy it second hand?

I have a new Ruger stock coming for an RL I bought from a H-W member.  Seems "Ultra Light" wasn't good enough for him.  So it was drilled full of holes and the forearm hollowed out.  They attempted to bed the action, but instead bedded every thing except the load bearing part of the lug.   And he said the work was done by a smith  

Anyway, I mention this since when this new stock gets here I will be adding pillars and bedding the action.  Might not make it until after this years hunting season.  But, I could probably do both this one and yours at the same time for not much more than the one as long as I'm not under a time crunch.  I do have a set of 700 pillars that have been sitting around here for about 10 years (last time I owned a Remington).  You could have those for free.

[Biggerhammer]

Your bedding compound of choice and a little time with YouTube " How to bed a action" . Makes for a good fall project when things slow down.

[7mmfan]

Ok so to make sure I don't screw this up, how much of the channel do I sand? There was the small up near the end of the stock, and then there is a v-shaped raised section that starts at the action and tapers down the further up the stock it goes. Should all of that be sanded out as well?

[Biggerhammer]

You can fold the sandpaper and work it by hand itself. You don't have to wrap it around anything if you prefer not to. Sand out the "Hump/ bump" then put the barreled action back in the stock and snug it up with the action screws. Take a $1.00 bill or $10.00, $50.00 whatever and from above cradle the barrel with the bill just ahead of the forearm and slide it back towards your action, keeping upward tension with the bill tight against the barrel. The bill should be able to slide freely without any resistance all the way to the recoil lug. If it meets resistance or hangs up, make a quick note as to where. Remove the barreled action and do a little more sandpaper work.

[brokenvet]

A barrel that is touching the stock will make the rifle shoot high not inconsistent.  Sure it will help to remove the contact, but I think you have other issues like lose mounts, bad scope, rifle is lose on the stock.

Your ammo are they store bought or hand loads?  What weight, are they flat base or boat tails?  Barrel twist? 

Barrel twist makes a difference in the type of bullet and weight.  I will assume that your shooting a 120 & 140 grain bullets and that your barrel twist is a 1-9".

 

[7mmfan]

Barrel twist is 1-9 and I am shooting 139gr bullets. They are BT's. I've done enough reading now that I'm really experiencing this problem and have found that this stock design by Remington has a lot of people suffering from the same thing. The first shot or two are OK and then they go to hell from there.

I understand that part of this is the light weight barrel heating up very fast. However, yesterday I was letting it sit 10 minutes between shots and running a patch through it before each shot, to no avail. There are many threads out there where people have had great success sanding out the pressure point and bedding the action.

I know for a fact the scope mounts are good, but I do feel there is a possibility the action is loose. I'm really leaning towards bedding the action on this gun. Its something that I have absolutely no experience and am not set up to do at home, but also don't have the funds to have a gunsmith do it for me. Anyone that can offer some insite would be appreciated. I watched several youtube videos last night, it doesn't look to difficult, but the last thing I want is this being done halfass

[RadSav]

My guns are always sighted in dirty.  I rarely go into the woods without at least three pills down the barrel so I like to sight in starting there and might go a dozen rounds before running a patch through.  I find little benefit to sighting the fowling shot.  Even if it is after simply running a dry patch down the tube.

The majority of your hunting rifles will string the third shot in a group.  Even many of the well floated barrels do this.  Oddly enough the only lightweight barreled guns I own that do not do this a little bit are the ones with carbon stocks and full length barrel bedding - One a NULA the other a Kimber.

Pressure point guns do make that third shot string higher than floated barrels.  Though I'd hope in a hunting situation I've made those first two shots count   That is a great stock, but I do think what you said about an action shim missing is contributing to your troubles.  You could always sell me that gun for cheap and I'd take care of it for you

One of the things I didn't see you mention is what groups you are currently getting.  Most of the stock Mountain rifles I've played with are about 1.5" guns with the first two rounds and then a third round going high by an additional inch or more.  Similar to the Ruger RL which would be there equivalent rifle in that brand.  All but one of those after full action bedding and floating improved at least 50% with factory ammo.  One that did not improve was taken to the machine shop and shortened just enough to recut the crown.  After that is was a tack driving SOB!

One other thing you need to watch on the  RL, Model 7 and Mountain rifles is where you place the stock on the bag.  None shoot well with a bipod and bags should be placed within 4-5" of the magazine.  That thin fore end is just too flexible to place the bags out front...even on the laminate stock!  When trying to get these guns to group I like to place a piece of electrical tape on the stock and place the bag in the exact some place each time.  When floating these guns I like to leave almost excess amounts of space in the barrel channel.  The normal dollar bill or folded dollar bill doesn't seem enough when you rush a shot and don't get the stock placed on your pack or a rock just right.

You will notice Tikka, Sako and Ruger have floated the barrels on the new Tupperware stocks with huge gaps between barrel and stock.  I expect for similar reason.

[7mmfan]

Grouping wise, there really is none. Last year with handloads I was averaging a 2" group or so. Have not been able to find powder until yesterday for this load, so I bought Hornaday Superformance rounds, and literally had bullets in a 6" circle with no pattern at all.

I agree that the missing shim is probably attributing to the problem, so I would like to find a replacement, but wonder if eliminating the one thats there would also work. The shims go in underneath on either end of the trigger assembly, between it and the stock. They aren't directly affecting the seating of the action on top of the stock. If they are eliminated completely, I can't imagine it making that large of a difference. My gut tells me they were there to strengthen that connection and put less stress on the stock at those points.

Your comment about the only two lightweight rifles that DON'T stray a third shot are full length bedded makes me wonder if the lighterweight/flexible stock will perform better when "stiffened" so to speak by glass bedding. This would also eliminate inconsistent contact with the barrel?

It really sounds like if I want this gun to be the tackdriver I know it can be, I need to float the barrel and glassbed the action, or potentially glassbed the whole thing. I am all about doing this myself, but don't want to feel my way around and screw something up. If someone is willing to mentor/supervise and make sure I do this right, I would love to get together and take care of this. I probably have the funds to purchase the materials to do it, but not to pay someone to do it for me.