I'm not a gun nut but have been playing around bedding a couple of actions lately and enjoying the results of it. Free floated a Vanguard series 1 7mm rem mag this weekend but been too windy to test the results. Bedded the action on it and it went from 3"" groups with rem coreloks to 5/8" horizontal, 2" vertical. Hoping free floating will help vertical. Got other rifles to play with and was just wondering about the pros and cons of a full barrel bed. Just hunting rifles, wood and plastic stocks. 1 moa would be good 1/2 would be great. Just factor ammo at this point. Am enjoying tinkering with the guns. Any of you guys have experience with both methods?

I think that choice depends on how stable you feel the stock is to any warping. I float barrels on any stock that might warp in the front half(and have been playing with tuning screw in the forestock on some 22's to test effect). Good stable hardwood and even quality composite material for accurate rifles is hard/exspensive to acquire. Just beautiful looking wood doesn't make a quality platform for accurizing. Some off the most accurate wood stocked rifles I have shot have had just plain Jane hardwood BUT were rock solid material.

I like both but also appreciate the pressure point used in some Mod 700 rifles. I would try free floating first.

If in doubt about the stability of the stock, free float it. I would only full bed it if the thing was in a top notch laminated or carbon fiber stock myself. Even then, I would free float it first as its hard to get back from a full barrel bedding.

The guns with wood are mostly plain Jane rem 788s which I believe are birch stocks...???

I think you will find they are beech and not birch

I had a notable Gu shop bed my 700 7mag. It was the best thing I ever did with it!!! He Glass Bedded mine.

free float the barrel

bed the action at the back and at the recoil lug

I will go out to the barrel nut , because sometimes the magazine is in the way to get a good bed on parts of the action

Johnson's paste wax and a tooth brush to apply it to get a good release

plumbers putty to block where you don't want the epoxy to go devcon epoxy

tape things off on the stock have plenty of paper towels and rubbing alcohol to clean up any over flow

This ^

JB weld is cheaper, more available, harder, stronger and more heat resistant than devcon. But I had wait 30 to 45 minutes for it to setup so it was easier to work with.

JB weld works also brand doesn't matter that much

both are much harder , stronger and heat resistant than the wood

Midway wells the Devcon for 9.99 and it is often plenty to do 2 rifles

Amazon has it for 9.21

it has 60 minute work time , 6 hour set time and 16-24 hour cure time

you don't want to try and get it all in 5 minutes so the 5 minute stuff isn't the best option

paper plate and popsicle sticks are my go to for mixing epoxy

Good question that will have many answers!

A "springy" stock, as in a cheap plastic or lightweight wood stock that compresses with the weight of the barrel when held towards the end should shoot better with the barrel bedded.
A really stiff stock Like the ones they call chassis nowadays that won't add to the "jump" when fired like a cheap springy stock does, A free floated barrel should work best.

Weight of barrel comes into the equation also, but guessing you're just talking hunting weight barrels, I'd go with bedding the action and out the barrel about an inch and a half on the thick part of the barrel with the rest of it free floating.

Just my opinion!

Some may recall, but a few years back, facing prolonged ammo shortages, I made the call to resume reloading for rifles. Most were easy fixes, but had one problem child in the form of a Rem 700. First couple cold shots were fine.....grouped tight. But after that, while doing load workups, groups would start to open up as the barrel heated up. My quest to get to the bottom of that has led me down a rabbit hole to the point where I now know about 50X more than I ever dreamed I would want to know about what all goes into making a rifle accurate. One of those is dealing with that 3 point pressure bedding job Remington puts on their rifles. Action is held to the stock by two action bedding screws, and barrel rests on that pressure point out towards fore end of the stock. Recoil lug may or may not make good contact with the stock. It is done like that as an inexpensive say to mass produce a rifle without having to free float the barrel and bed the action. Forward pressure point used to cut down on the barrel whip and harmonics. As most are used when hunting.........one or two cold shots will normally group 2 inches or less, so more than accurate enough to plug deer out to 200 yards. Over 7 million sold like that?

So not understanding what I had, and thus not willing to accept what I had, took the gun to a smith who free floated the barrel and bedded the action. It turns out there is bedding the action, and then there is bedding the action. There is a lot that goes into doing that job right. A bad bedding job just creates a different set of problems. But if you do get it right, it may drop 1 1/2 MOA groups to 3/4" or less......until you run into the next set of problems and you can start chasing those. Rough action, bad barrels, rough barrel, dirty barrel, bad crown and the list goes on. Going from 2 inches to 1 inch is pretty easy. Going from 1 " to 1/2" gets expensive in a hurry.

Just saying.

Free float first, if it doesn't work out, you will need to do that anyway to glass bed it.

788s love to be floated and bedded. Bed the recoil lug and a small spot around the back action screw. Those stocks are either birch or walnut.

Thanks everyone

Man I love the Remington 788’s

Great advice right here. Systematic instead of doing it all at once. You'll learn more doing it this way.

Well I got some results from my work. Action bedded a vanguard series 1 7mm rem mag(which a pretty cheap plastic stock) and free floated the barrel. 17 mph quartering tailwind but I was itching to shoot so I went out. It went from shooting 3+ groups with remington core lokts tipped to legitimate .75 down to 1/2 inch groups at a hundred. Before the work it was shooting some Barnes factor loads better but didn't have time to test them. The Tikka in 270, action bedding and free floating didn't help it. Might try bedding the barrel in one spot and see if that helps. The stock on the Tikka is pretty hollow in the forearm and it would take a lot of bedding material to bed the whole barrel
..... not real sure how to bed the barrel and how to put tension on it or how much tension to put on the bedding...???

These are the instructions on how to stabilize the Tikka stock. You can't get that product in US, so will have to find an alternative, like a West or System 3 epoxy, and some type of thickener like silica or wood flour. But this explains what you want to do:

https://www.ballisticstudies.com/Kn...hetic+Stock+Stabilizer+instructions.html