Found in the forearm of the stock, between barrel and stock. Small bump about the size of a pencil eraser, centered under the barrel.

Have asked other places and got a lot of speculation, but does anyone here know the "official" reason why Remington put it there?

I free floated mine. It's a 1969 and likely different than yours,
A real problem it HAD was the sling swivel stud touching the barrel.

I think the older rifles barrels were pressure bedded...theory being to dampen the barrel and make is shoot better. I had an early 70s 22-250 that shot a large "pattern". It was pressure bedded. I free floated the barrel and glass bedded the action and turned it into an honest 1.25" gun.
Don't know if any guns recently are pressure bedded.

Called a pressure point, some barrels shoot better with and some will shoot better without it.

What he said, pressure point.

I'm assuming wood stocked?

A common way to try to control barrel harmonics when fired. Can be problematic though if the wood itself flexes due to humidity. Keeping the wood sealed is the fix or you can free float to eliminate contact. Another issue with pressure bedding can be inconsistent contact. Barrel lands in a different spot on the bump at each shot, usually due to not enough pressure. The barrel should stay in full contact as it moves. The fix is a taller bump, assuming the wood isn't flexing.

Old school bedding like that can be trial and error and frustrating which is why free float and glass or pillar bedding came along.

Since Remington did not glass bed and free float the barrel, they needed to do something to tame the barrel harmonics to tighten the groups. Better than nothing I suppose. It probably worked for a while. Long enough to prevent returns. But as stated above, once the environment starts working on the wood, groups are going to grow.

Yep, it was Remington's gimmick with wood stocks for years.

You will be safe to file and sand it out, until you can run a sheet of paper...or a dollar bill...the length of the stock from the front of the forearm to the action, without the paper catching (or contacting) either the barrel channel or the barrel. Poor man's free floating, but usually improves accuracy.

If it doesn't, you can always add a drop of epoxy back where the wood lump was.

They put it there cause its a cheap way of getting acceptable accuracy. lots of companies did it, I took the pressure point out of my savage 99 to get suitable accuracy.

BTW, free floating isn't a guarantee of accuracy. All it does is allow the barrel to flex the same shot to shot without outside influence from the stock.

If you cut that bump out you need to bed the action tighter. Like was said either glass or pillar. if your doing it yourself glass is easier. If you can consistently group inside a birthday party size paper plate at 300 yards your rifle will be a very effective hunting tool though. Even guns like the much touted pre 64 model 70 some shoot better than others. Rifle barrels today are a lot more uniform than they were 60 plus years ago. even cheap rifles have pretty decent barrels and good bolt lockup. These composite stocks are ugly but very uniform. out of the box rifles today are more consistently accurate than they ever were 60-70 years ago

I just took that bump out of my ADL .222. It wasn't grouping very well at all. I am currently in the process of stripping and redoing the stock. Taking the old flaking factory finish off and going to refinish with Linspeed oil

Llinspeed, done properly, is beautiful. Dont forget to bed the action with accuglass or something.

i really love an oil finished stock Danny. Planning on bedding it also

I've been using tru-oil on stocks I've done lately and I'm sold on it.

Easy to use and gives the old oil look if you steel wool it a tad...or can leave it glossy.