advice on bedding

Hi guys, I have a Brno bolt 22 which, on dismantling, found it touching the wood(judging by the blackening of the wood from oil) for about 150mm from the bolt face,ie about five,six inches. And on one side mainly. Am thinking of sanding down that black area to provide complete floating of the barrel. But what is the general practice with such a gun. The breech area is tapered for about 70mm and is blackened then the barrel itself starts and blacked on one side. i can't remembers the accuracy of the gun (a No 5) but is the bedding incorrect? Could snading those black contact areas ijprove the accuracy/consistency of groups?

Hi Richard. On a rimfire that will generally be shot at closer ranges I wouldn't bother to much with the bedding - that is if the rifle is accurate enough.

If you plan to compete with the rifle - totally different story. Then I'd suggest to remove material in the barrel channel so the barrel doesn't touch forward of the action.

Best leave it being brno and not cz marked should make it at least 30 years old. The timber will have settled nicely into middle age and freshening it up will likely start things moving again.
They don't benefit anywhere near as much as centrefires do from changing from pressure bedding to free floating.
As above how accurate is it? In many 22s accuracy is more to do with brand of ammunition than rifle and half to 1 inch at 50 m would be considered acceptable to most.

I floated my model 2 and it made the forend wobbly which was annoying

Id still do it tho

Thanks guys. I'll take the lazy option and do nothing untill I check it on the range. If there are significant flyers then a little sanding might tighten groups.

The bedding on some .22's is a little counter-intuitive compared to bigger rifles - especially if you only have 1 bolt holding the thing into the stock. If you have an accuaracy issue then play with it by all means, but if not don't break what ain't busted...

I had a Norinco JW10A (a Stirling knockoff which in itself is a bastardised BRNO design I think) - this was particularly accurate but the main issue was it randomly selected which point of impact was going to be the one for any given day. It wasn't until I shot the thing at the same target over some weeks that we worked out why it had such a poxy hit rate for such an accurate gun - basically crap timber that was dense down one side and balsa on the other. Took a couple of goes to get the bedding 'right' and it went from a 1/2" group with random impact points depending on today's pressure on the barrel to 2" centered groups, and on the final go to 3/4" groups with everything it was fed including random mixes of ammo. I gave up after that and it was still doing that when I sold it!