Fully Floating Barrel Improves Accuracy!

[Frenchieboy]

My old Bruno Fox .222 was showing it's age (Much like me) and was in need of a bit of a "Wash and Brush Up" so I decided to clean, sand down and re-oil all of the woodwork. At the same time it dawned on me to check that the barrel was fully floating before I remover the woodwork from the rifle. To do this you should be able to slide a £5 or £10 note gently down between the barrel and the forend of the rifle (See Photo). I am not going to try to get technical about this but basically it is to allow the vibrations to travel down the barrel evenly when the rifle is fired. (Maybe the technically minded could elaborate on this if they wish to) Anyway I found that I was not able to do this so my barrel was not "floating" so while I had the woodwork off I remedied this with some careful use of a piece of sandpaper. As you can see from the photo I can now "carefully" get a "tenner" to slide down all the way along the forend of my rifle.

As they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating so i went out today to check the zeroing of my rifle and see if there was any improvement. I used to be "pushing it" to get near to a 1.5 to 2 inch (Closer to 2 inch if I am going to be honest) group at 100 yards in the prone position off the bipod but as the second photo shows after a little adjustment on the scope there is now a very marked improvement in the accuracy of the rifle - If I really put my mind to it I am willing to bet that I could improve on this accuracy a little more!

All in all, a job that was well worth doing to improve the accuracy of a quite old and cheap rifle! Look out Charlie, Bruno is waiting for you to come out to play with him!

Edited July 8, 2010 by Frenchieboy

[casts_by_fly]

The 'vibration' you speak of is the barrel flexing when it is fired. As the bullet goes down the barrel, the barrel flexes up and down, left and right, like a wave pattern. If you have inconsistent contact when the barrel is flexing, it will change where the muzzle points when the bullet exits. That has a major effect on accuracy.

 

On the flipside, some guns and barrels work better with consistent pressure between the top of the stock and the barrel. Usually it is lighter barrels and smaller cartridges. In those cases, you deliberately want to add a pressure point and vary the pressure to gain accuracy.

 

At the end of the day, consistency is what is important.

 

Thanks

Rick