Forend tip pressure?

H

huntinfool

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It seems every Remington rifle I pick up these days has those pressure pads putting upward pressure on the barrel at the forend. This goes against everything I've ever been told by custom gunsmiths and NONE of my full customs have these. I've always been told a free floated barrel shoots best (except for the ultralights). Are you guys removing the pads and finding out the rifle shoots better or just the opposite?

The rifle I just purchased is the XR-100 Remington and it has the varmint contour and the stock has the pressure pads. I have not shot it and won't do anything until I see how it shoots.
 
How soom we forget

Back when things were handmade, a calculated amount of upward pressure on the rifle's forend was considered necessary to achieve the best accuracy. The problem was finding a stock fitter with enough skill to achieve that perfect result. Factory rifles were so equipped, though once machine copied stocks were installed without hand fitting, this became more than a little hit & miss. The smart folk would take their new factory pieces to the local stock guru to have him refit it for performance.

If I recall correctly, it was Winchester who discovered that a barrel free floated for most of its length didn't shoot quite as well as the best hand fitted units, but was heaps better than the cheap crap with impressed checkering that they were supplying at the time. The degree that Winchester manufacture quality had dropped could be judged by the fact that they supplied their barrel-floating rifles with nasty black storage inserts that you slipped between the forend tip & the barrel to reduce the liklihood of the forend warping to touch the barrel again.

As you will still find come custom rifles achieving peak sporting accuracy with and fitted stocking with that upward pressure, why shouldn't one of the factory manufacturers try to emulate that desirable outcome with a (hopefully stable) synthetic stock?
 
I find it odd (though maybe I should'nt) that NONE of the rifles in Remingtons lineup advertise a "free floated barrel" yet every one of Savages rifles describe their rifles as free floated. I thought one of the purposes of a heavy barrel was so you can free float it and it will dampen vibrations.
 
You have to believe Remington isn't stupid. You can be sure they find their guns shoot better WITH FACTORY AMMO pressure bedded, why else would they keep doing it??? Everage Joe deer hunter is not a reloader or benchrester willing to tune things up.

"huntinfool" free floating will not "dampen vibrations". It lets the barrel ring at it's natural frequency which you take advantage of when you are "working up a load"
 
Remington rifles with wood stocks have had pressure pads right behind the forend tip for a long time. Some rifles might shoot best with upward pressure on the barrel from the stock, others don't. Unless the stock never warps from changes of humidity upward pressure might work. In places where the humidity changes a lot from one season to the next, a stock that warps even a little can really screw up point of impact.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky, but the idea that a rifle that shoots 1/2 MOA groups is needed for hunting deer or anything else larger than varmints is sort of silly. The average shooter in the field can't shoot well enough to tell the difference between a 1/2 MOA rifle and a 2 MOA rifle. More accuracy never hurts, don't get me wrong, but for deer, elk, and similar sized game a rifle that shoots 2 or even 3 MOA isn't likely to make any difference in hitting the animal.
 
karls42 said:
You have to believe Remington isn't stupid. You can be sure they find their guns shoot better WITH FACTORY AMMO pressure bedded, why else would they keep doing it??? Everage Joe deer hunter is not a reloader or benchrester willing to tune things up.

"huntinfool" free floating will not "dampen vibrations". It lets the barrel ring at it's natural frequency which you take advantage of when you are "working up a load"
Click to expand...

I guess my post wasn't clear. I meant to say that the heavy barrel dampens the vibrations and it was meant to be free floated.
 
When I bought my Remington 700 VLS / .204 Ruger last year, I pulled the action out of the stock to adjust the trigger. The stock is a laminated wood stock and the barrel is the heavy varmint weight. I noticed the bump in the barrel channel about two inches back from the tip of the forend. I thought I would have to file the bump down to free-float the barrel, but I decided to shoot it first to see how it did. I'm glad I didn't remove the pressure bump. :)

See attachment for my best group to date. I'm not naive enough to think I can shoot this group all the time, but it does indicate what the rifle can do.
 

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  • Remington 700-.204 #2.jpg
    Remington 700-.204 #2.jpg
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I guess...

huntinfool said:
It seems every Remington rifle I pick up these days has those pressure pads putting upward pressure on the barrel at the forend. This goes against everything I've ever been told by custom gunsmiths and NONE of my full customs have these. Are you guys removing the pads and finding out the rifle shoots better or just the opposite?

The rifle I just purchased is the XR-100 Remington and it has the varmint contour and the stock has the pressure pads. I have not shot it and won't do anything until I see how it shoots.
Click to expand...

I guess it depends on the rifle and load. Last year I got a new Rem Model 7 in 260. After load development it would agg about 1.25" with three shots. After I removed the pressure pads at the fore end, it would reliably agg about 3/4" with the same load. This is the Model 7 with the synthetic stock. Good enough for my use as a coyote gun.
 
Fore End pressure Point

I purchased a Remington 700 VSL a few years back on .308 and on bench shooting, I found it to drift up and right as the barrel got warm. On checking the bedding, I found the pressure point and removed it. I now can get a consistant group, not a tack hole but in the 0.50" to 0.90" with my handloads if I do my part, hard to hold uniformly on rest.

paulwiz
 
On my Marlin MR-7 .270 it grouped better with the pressure pad, but only by a little bit. I have found that my cold shot is closer with the barrel free floated and with this being a hunting rifle, I don't need it to shoot 3 or 5 shot groups, I need 1 cold shot where it goes. Hope this helps.
 
Strange, my XR-100 doesn't have a pressure pad. (.223) I have a VS that is several years old with a heavy barrel that doesn't have a pressure pad. All of my sporter rifles have the pressure pads. What is the diameter of the varmint contour?
 
Well, I took the rifle out of the stock and low and behold it doesn't have pressure pads. The barrel is just resting on the forend. I just ASSumed it had pads because a piece of paper would'nt slide in.

I'm trying to decide if I should just go ahead and Marine-tex bed it now and free float the barrel. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt.
 
If the action isn't properly bedded and the barrel channel is contacting the barrel unevenly you're unlikely to hurt anything by bedding it and floating the barrel. It can't hurt, and likely will help. With a floated barrel you can always check to see if the rifle likes some up pressure at the forend by slipping a few thicknesses of matchbook or target paper between the barrel and channel at the forend tip.
 
Huntin' Fool,
I've got an XR-100 in .204 and it shoots under .5" with a load I worked up for my LRPV. I've been thinking about the same thing: adding pillars and then bedding it. Hopefully, it won't hurt. Let me know how it works out for you. I won't be able to get to mine until this summer.
 
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