Thread: Improve accuracy ?

A question for the forum, I am thinking of removing the pressure blocks in the stock of my Remington BDL 7mm Mag and free floating the barrel to hopefully improve accuracy. I know that glass bedding the action, free floating barrel and all the other tricks to improve accuracy work but would free floating alone be worth while?, Will it likely ruin the accuracy by removing the blocks under the barrel ?
It will shoot around an inch at 100 yds now ( shot a 4.75 inch 3 shot group at 520 yds) but it would be nice if it was a bit better for those real long shots
Thanks in advance

That's getting greedy.....

I would be happy to leave it as is, you're never guaranteed it will get better with work and you may end up making it worse...
1 inch at 100 yards is good accuracy for deer at least and 5 inches at 500 is bloody great!

I had a model 7 synthetic when they first come out that I bedded and floated the barrel.

It had forend pressure and shot around the same as yours prior to me screwing with it.

It shot like shit after the work. It improved when I gave it 10 lbs of forend pressure but not great.
I ended up rebarreling it with a heavier contour Hart barrel and it shot better than ever.




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Yeh that's what I was worried about wreaking the accuracy that's already there. Thanks for the replies

If your stock is synthetic plastic,leave it as it I is. Is will probably not shift much over the year temperature and climate variations unless you leave it baking in the sun.
If it is wood, you might see some variations of the center of your groups, depending if it is rainy of wet. If it does not move too much and you check the zero keep like that, other wise definitely glass bed it. To glass bed, I usually keep the lump on the barrel Chanel and just drop the action in the stock with out tightening to much the screws. Once resin is set, I remove the action and grind the lump and put the action back in place and tightened for good. ( it is a brief and fast description , I take a lot more care about a lot of details when I bed my rifles...too long to write on a post )

it is a synthetic stock and it seems to be stable enough, I was thinking accuracy may benefit if the upward pressure was removed from the barrel and made it free floating. Might have the opposite effect though!!

The other thing to try is to see if you can borrow a chassis style setup if someone has one lying around...
Otherwise like the lads have said, leave it.
It's a tough one though... curiosity can get the better of some folk!!

its desighned that way for a reason

Bit of a tough decision to make. Particularly when every rifle behaves differently. I have glass bedded and free floated 7 of my rifles some plastic and some wood, and all had an improvement in accuracy. However each was a gamble.

I would suggest giving Nathan a call at Terminal Ballistics. He has a wealth of knowledge and is always willing to give people good honest advice whether they are customers or not.

Good luck.

Remove the pressure bedding point and accuracy will go to hell in a handbasket unless you bed the action and ensure the barrel is free floated. A full chasis stock is also an option but $$ . Pressure bedding is ok especially in a stable plastic stock. You say you have got sub moa at 500 now, any bedding system might not better that unless you go heavy barrel and even then thats questionable. As someone has said greedy.

You haven't mentioned it and no one has asked but are you reloading for it?
If not, see if you can starting doing that and if you are maybe a different projectile or seating depth could improve your groups.

If you can find another stock for the rifle for cheap, you could use that for experimenting with, so try removing the pressure points the glass bedding it.
And if it all gets worse you still have your original stock.

Thanks for all the options to think about. I do reload and my long range load is using the 162 gr A-Max. My 300 RUM has had the pressure blocks removed and the barrel is floated back to the recoil lug but it is glass bedded around the recoil lug and the tang. I also had pillars put in on the action screws so the plastic stock doesn't crush. By doing this and changing to the 208gr A-Max from the 180gr Accubond accuracy did improve, best group at 100 yds is 13mm ( if I am measuring it right ) but even if I measured wrong it looks pretty good to me.( Picture of 3 shot group with 300 Rum at 100yds)

I suppose to be more certain of an improvement I will need to do the same at least to the 7mmMag as I did to the 300. I might try playing with the loads and seating depth to see if that's any better.
If not it is shooting good enough as is.