Free floating

[bowhunterforever]

Hey guys, how much does it cost on average to have a gun smith free float a barrel? Does it improve accuracy alot? And what else having the gun smith do will help improve accuracy? I dont know much about working on guns to get them to peform at there best! Any info helps thanks!

[Huntbear]

Getting the gun pillar bedded and free floated is a start, also a trigger adjustment will help a lot.  Short of pulling the barrel off and lapping the bolt lugs, truing the bolt face, and putting a better grade barrel on it, those will help the most.

[jackelope]

first you need to see if your barrel needs to be floated.
trigger work is one of the biggest accuracy improvers IMO.
replacing or reworking the existing trigger.
bedding the action to the stock.
floating the barrel.

[docsven]

What kind of shooting are you going to do?

[Bofire]

If it aint broke dont fix it. Many guns, not free floated, shoot wonerfully. I know some folks who free floated and had wonderful results, how ever I also know a number of folks who free floated and had to go back to a contact point because accuracy went to hell. I repeat, are you addressing a problem or just beleiving this is something you NEED to do?? If it shoots good now dont FIX it.
Carl

[Gobble]

I would do it yourself. Its easy to do. And yes it helps greatly. When a gun is fired the barrel acts like a whip. When it meets a point of contact it can cause it to jump. When you remove the point of contact the motion is fluid and consistant. Take a strip of masking tape and run down the outside of the stock the length of the barrel. Take 2 one dollar bills together and run them down the barrel and mark on the tape with pen where the bills stop along the barrel. take the gun apart and sand the inside of the stock to remove the high point. Put the barrel back in and tighten the screws down and repeat the process until you can run the bills all the way down the barrel. Its very easy to do. Make sure you use birchwood casey gun stock finish on the wood that you sanded off to make sure no moisture penetrates and warps the stock if it gets wet. You can find this at any gun store. The whole thing costs about $10 to do and a couple of hours max.

[docsven]

  If this is your hunting rifle.you really don't have to do too much.  Trigger work would make a big difference.  Is your barrel shot out.  What is the rifle?

[bowhunterforever]

The gun is a ruger m77 ultralight 204! It shoot some pretty good groups, i was just trying to figure out how i could make the groups better! I just use the gun for hunting. So you think i should put a trigger on it first to see if i shoot better with that? What kind of trigger, a timey?

[atomicjoe23]

I have never heard anything bad about Timney triggers. . .

an helpful hint when you are sanding the barrel channel to relieve it is to get a woooden dowel rod of the correct diameter and wrap the sand paper around it and use that to sand the barrel channel. . .that way you keep a nice round profile to your barrel channel. . .

. . .I just bought a Weatherby Vanguard Varmint Special in .22-250 and the barrel is not free floated. . .but the target it came with has a sub-MOA group. . .I'm gonna shoot it for a while before I decide whether or not to inlet my stocks barrel channel. . .

[FrankDown]

How close were the holes in your papr that came with your Vanguard?

[Gobble]

I have never heard anything bad about Timney triggers. . .

an helpful hint when you are sanding the barrel channel to relieve it is to get a woooden dowel rod of the correct diameter and wrap the sand paper around it and use that to sand the barrel channel. . .that way you keep a nice round profile to your barrel channel. . .

 

I forgot to mention that. Anything round will work, I used a felt pen (large highlighter) wrapped in sandpaper if I remember right. I did this to my Rem 700 BDL 20 years ago (actually the day i bought it) and I can cover a 3 shot group at 150 yrds with a quarter. Everything you can do to make your gun consistant is great. I've always had great coinfidence in my weapon except for a opening weekend hunt 3 years ago. We were hunting near Alta and I missed 5 bucks opening weekend (1 180" 5 x 5 , 2 150-160" 4 points and 2 - long tined 3 points) . I'm not used to missing, in fact I had never missed a animal in 17 yrs up to that point with that gun. Turned out the 15 yr old old loctite that I had used on my Leupold came loose from the magnum rounds I had been shooting the previous couple of years. I re-loctited the scope once I got home and nailed a buck the next weekend. I just about wrapped the thing around a tree after missing that 180" in buck though.

[jeepasaurusrex]

I used a large diameter sanding drum in my die grinder. Cleaned it out real nice.


Howa 1500.

[atomicjoe23]

How close were the holes in your papr that came with your Vanguard?

0.75" 3 round group at 100 yds. . .two rounds were in one hole and then the third put it out to the 0.75". . .without the third round it was less than 0.5". . .

[jeepasaurusrex]

I always seem to end up with the same type of group. Two in one hole, and one flier. I'm thinking its the barrel heating up. 

[Big10gauge]

Wooden stocks with fore end pressure = possible changes in impact with varying humidity and possible changes in impact everytime you remove the action if you don't tighten the screws to the same torque each time

Composite stocks with fore end pressure =possible changes in impact everytime you remove the action if you don't tighten the screws to the same torque each time

Free floating can lessen both these problems, you should still torque your action screws the same each time you remove your action especially if your action is not bedded

Just my