Wm.Traynor wrote:Gwion,
Don't let me discourage you from your experiment. FWIW however, I come from a background where Every barrel floats and has done since the Omark was introduced. Fifty years ago?
I do agree that barrel floating is cheap c.f. fully bedded. But is it more accurate? The only way to find out would be to fully bed first, try it out, then float it and observe the results.
One more thing. If you want to "effectively" shorten the barrel, how about the so-called "glue job"? A few inches of barrel are epoxied in to the barrel channel, while the rest floats.
Just thought of something else. In the case where floating does not work in a rimfire. Try different ammo. Study the shape of the group for vertical dispersion. Recrown? Failing all that, give up and do what you did
to the Sportco.
Would love to know how that project goes
I was thinking of going the other way around when i rebarrel the Zasty with my new wildcat (if and when funds ever allow!). Rebarrel with light profile 1:14 twist 22cal barrel. Float barrel from 1 inch forward of action. Run full load development to find best accuracy. Bed barrel to end of barrel channel and do another round of load development to see if better accuracy is achieved. Depending on results, i can either leave it or refloat it. Will cost bugger all but a bit of time.
I know the practice of floating has been common wisdom for many many years, i just think it's interesting that this particular custom gun maker thought that a proper stock made of well seasoned and sealed timber, fully bedded, would give better accuracy than floating. His theory, not mine, but i am happy to test it. He did clarify that this only relates to centerfire for some reason and that either floating or pressure bedding is the way to go with rimfire.
I was going to mention gluing in my last post. Apparently the AI rifles are glued in, again flying in the face of common wisdom that the barreled action needs some ability to recoil under battery in the bedding. This is one that i'm not so keed to play with as once it's glued properly it would be a big job to roll back if needed.
The Sporty came out pretty good. Had it re-crowned, a few old farmyard gun smithing screw-ups repaired and tried upwards of a dozen ammo types through it (as many as i could source locally). After pressure bedding it went from around 1" at 25m to one hole at 25m with Winchester PPmax. It's still no target rifle but can easily drop 5 into well under the inch at 50m. I also put a pillar in the back screw and bedded the action to just forward of the barrel lug.
I quite enjoy playing around with all these different theories that get bandied about and seeing what actually work for me and my rifles.