Eliminating or dampening barrel harmonics
About 30 years ago I had a Remington 700BDL "Varmint" in .243 Win. caliber. The gun shot very well (<1" moa). Then, one day I read an article in one of the gun magazines suggesting shooters bed about 1.5" of the barrel starting about 1.5" from the end of the forearm. The purpose of this short bedding is to eliminate or dampen barrel harmonics for better accuracy and more consistet Point Of Impact. I did this short bedding "improvement" and my 100 yd., 5 shot groups became one ragged hole shooting 42.5 grs. IMR4350 with CCI400 primers and the Hornady 87 gr. SP bullet.
My current Savage Model 10 in .223 Rem. is also a shooter and I have almost, but not yet achieved the desired 100 yd., 5 shot group into one ragged hole. The rifle has H-S Precision stock with the barrel having lots of free-float between it and the stock.
My question is this: Do any reputable gunsmiths or manufacturers, today, do this short barrel bedding procedure for better accuracy? I conducted searches at various shooting sites and could find no info.
I would like some opinions from others who might have tried some procedure like this.
Best wishes and good luck. ;)