Rob,
I will throw out my experience on this from years ago on an experiment that my old shooting buddy did years ago.
Is the block necessitated because of the weight of the barrel in relation to the stiffness of the action and that why they came inot being?
Rob,
I would say yes to this question. When I first started going to Williamsport years ago, custom action were unheard of and 1.25" diameter x 30" was probably the biggest barrel any manufacturer made at that time that I'm aware of. So the block was probably designed to handle the "bigger" barrels on the std sized actions of that time.
Or is there proven scientific data that shows a barrel blocked setup performs better then one without?
I own block guns, glued sleeve guns, and fully floated with big custom actions. Each have their own little personalities. But when it's all said and done from watching, shooting, and listening all these years... I personally don't see an advantage of one over the other. See exception below....
Has anybody out there ever taken the same barreled action and shot it blocked and without? If so, what differences did you see?
Yes and no ( this is not full floated to barrel block!!), What we did was in the late '80 early '90s?? My old shooting buddy had Ken Kleinendorst build a 30KK (308 Baer for all intents and purposes) using a straight untapered 1.350 barrel that was at least 30" long. It was glued into the barrel channel of a Hall pattern Sixx stock and the action was free floated and the scope was mounted on the action. The action was one of the old solid bottom AIII Sako actions. I own this action still and it's on my old glued sleeve 6.5-300 Win Mag.
Anyway this rifle was fired in all 10 matches and all shots were on paper and the yearly agg was 16"?? inches. Don't remember exact numbers, it's was awhile ago. Over the winter the barreled action was removed from that stock (not rechambered or setback at all) and dropped into a barrel block and fired the entire 10 match agg the next year. Don't remember the exact aggs again... but it went down by 4-5" from the previous year. But the overall average of the 2 yearly aggs for all qualified shooters stayed roughly the same. So it wasn't like it was a bad conditions for the bedded barrel aggregate and then great condition for the agg the year the barrel block was used. So in that case a block over glued in barrel in the barrel channel was on improvement. FYI: When the glued barrle channel rifle has a flyer it was almost always up and down and toward the end of the 10 shot string. Just an interesting fact I remember after reviewing all of Bob's target over the winter.
Bob wasn't a machine gunner, but he stayed smooth and steady. I would guess his normal bench precedure was 10 shots in 45-50 secs.
I do beleve the speed that you shoot these different shooting systems influeneces the outcome of these tests.
I currently use the flaoting method with the big BAT action for ease of changing barrels/calibers. I put the extra money into the 2x10 BAT rather than the barrel block is all... per Dave's suggestion when we talked about putting it togehter. I don't feel I've regretted that decision.
..... what is it that Dave always says, "everything is a compromise"! keep that in mind in your persuit of the "perfect" system.
Steve
