bedding a lite wt barrel

[280Ackley]

I had a 257 Bob built on a CZ action a couple of years ago. I bought a select match grade shilen barrel in the lite contour and a Boyd thumbhole stock. The action was blue printed and full bedded, but the barrel was left full floated. The gun is fun to shoot, but I have not obtained the tiny groups I desire. About a minute of angle is the best I have been able to get with 115 berger VLDs. While this is OK I would really like to do better. I have read that lite contour barrels respond to some pressure at the forend. There is a lot of room in the barrel channel as it was designed for the #2 contour. What would be the best way to built up a pressure point and how do you measure how much pressure is being applied?

[Frank46]

This is going to sound low tech. Get some gasket material in different thickness's and use this as a shim under the barrel right near the forend tip. Also I seem to remember that the berger vld's may or may not shoot well in some barrels. Think thats why they came out with their length tolerant length bullets. Sierra's have always shot well in just about any rifle I have used them in. Hope this helps, Frank

[Three44s]

Cork material maybe?

Three 44s

[oldhickory]

I did this once with a Winchester M70 Featherweight .308 at the range, cut a business card into 1/2" squares and built up the squares one at a time under the barrel about 1.5" behind the for-end until I got groups I was happy with. My M70 is full length glassed, not free floated, but it worked so well I just soaked the card squares in oil and put them back under the barrel where they still reside today.

[largom]

What yardage are you shooting. VLD's may not fully stabilize at 100 yds.
Larry

[280Ackley]

Bullet is stable. I've played with on paper at 100 and 200, killed a nice buck at a little over 200 this year. The berger is not the problem. I've shot sierra's and barnes both in this gun, the bergers were the best group wise. Its a bedding issue i'm sure.

[BD]

One of my favorite rifles is a .270 WBY mag that I bought with the "eurostyle" 24" #1 contour barrel. That thing gave me fits when new. I tried all kinds of pressure point arrangements, and always had vertical stringing. Any pressure on the forestock from an odd rest or a tight sling would send flyers. Then I pillar bedded the action and floated the barrel which got me round groups, but still couldn't get under MOA. Finally I sent it out and had it froze. Cryo something or other did it. That settled it right down and it's been behaving ever since. I haven't seen the adds for that service lately and I don't know if they're still doing it or not. But it sure did work for me.

BD