Free floating barrel question AND possible bedding?

All,
I am building my wife a savage 110 with Apache gunworks 7mm-08 barrel (which just came in and looks great!). This is all going on a boyds custom laminate stock cut to her size. The whole rig is quite small and perfect for her. Anyways, I threw the new barrel on yesterday. The old stock barrel was free floated the entire way to the barrel nut. The new barrel is free floated up until about 1inch in front of the barrel nut. This Gun will ONLY be used to 300 yards on deer (most likely will never see past 200 yards but we do have 1 field stand that has a 280 yard shot). We would like this rifle to be close to 1MOA.
My question is...would you go out and see how the rifle shoots, in its current form, without free floating all the way to the nut AND without pillarbedding the rifle. If it shoots well now, will it shoot well in the winter where it counts most? OR Should I just pillar bed and free float right now. Keep in mind I have only bedded one other rifle (skim bedded technically) and it already had an aluminum bedding block which did not need pillars. The bedding job came out decent but not great. Hers would be a bit more complicated and makes me nervous. I do not want to hurt her rifle and there are NO gunsmiths around to bed rifles.

Thoughts?

Shoot it. Warm up the barrel and see if the shots walk. I have a couple of rifles that are bedded at least 2" past the recoil lug and that's because they shoot better that way. As for cold weather, it's hard to say what will happen.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hotolds442

Shoot it. Warm up the barrel and see if the shots walk. I have a couple of rifles that are bedded at least 2" past the recoil lug and that's because they shoot better that way. As for cold weather, it's hard to say what will happen.

---

yeah...that is what im worried about. Her old rifle was a 243 in a un-bedded laminate and that thing shot VERY well not matter what temp. I have heard laminates are a bit better at temp/humidity resistance compared to normal wood stocks. Im afraid we will go shoot it and it will shoot fine now. Then come hunting season and it is not fine! I could care less if point of impact changes as I can correct for that but if her rifle shoots sub MOA now and then in cooler weather shoots like 1.5MOA that would kind of stink. Maybe I should just try to bed it. It just really scares me (drilling through the brand new stock to install pillars part. Not the Bedding compound part as ive done that already).

i feel your pain as I too hate to cut on brand new parts. Rest assured and drill away, once the pillars are installed and the stock is bedded all will be well.

never knew of a good bedding job to ever hurt things. I also believe that if it's done you should bed the entire chamber area of the barrel. About 1.5 to 2" in front of the lug.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PaddyD

never knew of a good bedding job to ever hurt things. I also believe that if it's done you should bed the entire chamber area of the barrel. About 1.5 to 2" in front of the lug.

---

I have heard that but I am not completely confident I would do a "good" job haha.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bigeclipse

I have heard that but I am not completely confident I would do a "good" job haha.

---

Well, the first time I tried it it was not pretty, but guess what? That old rifle shot twice as good as it did before I did the bedding on it. If you have one of the cheap plastic stocks GO FOR IT... The worst case is you then have a great excuse to buy a real stock with an aluminum bedding block. A good smith will do a pro job for about $100

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PaddyD

Well, the first time I tried it it was not pretty, but guess what? That old rifle shot twice as good as it did before I did the bedding on it. If you have one of the cheap plastic stocks GO FOR IT... The worst case is you then have a great excuse to buy a real stock with an aluminum bedding block. A good smith will do a pro job for about $100

---

it is not an old stock. It is a brand new custom boyds stock...that is the hesitation.

I understand the hesitation. I had it on my first bedding job. I had a 22 JW-15 in a beat up stock and I purchased a replacement new stock for $25 knowing I was going to mess up the job. It wasn't a neat job, but everything came out ok and I wound up with a piss poor rifle that shot better and an extra stock (all since sold).

The worst thing you are going to do is get the barrel and receiver stuck in the stock which can be separated with freezing unless you REALLY messed up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fotheringill

I understand the hesitation. I had it on my first bedding job. I had a 22 JW-15 in a beat up stock and I purchased a replacement new stock for $25 knowing I was going to mess up the job. It wasn't a neat job, but everything came out ok and I wound up with a piss poor rifle that shot better and an extra stock (all since sold).

The worst thing you are going to do is get the barrel and receiver stuck in the stock which can be separated with freezing unless you REALLY messed up.

---

ive bedded 2 rifles so far but neither were pillars (they both had aluminum bedding blocks that I skim bedded). Im not exactly worried about getting the rifle stuck as much as I am about drilling the brand new stock for the pillars, making sure the pillars are set in right, and then finally grinding out enough of the wood stock for bedding with out hurting the outside appearance of the stock.

Does the stock have pillars now? If it has the original savage type pillars, the front one can be set a little deeper into the stock, sometimes with just a tap of a hammer, or by reaming the shoulder of the hole with a dremel. Tape the suface of the stock real good helps prevent any boo boos and tears. The front pillar is held by shoulder of pillar. the rear pillar is under the trigger guard so its a little easier on the nerves to play with.
Bedding has DEFINITELY helped on the ones I've done. One of those was a Stocky's Bobby Hart model.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BowNut

Does the stock have pillars now? If it has the original savage type pillars, the front one can be set a little deeper into the stock, sometimes with just a tap of a hammer, or by reaming the shoulder of the hole with a dremel. Tape the suface of the stock real good helps prevent any boo boos and tears. The front pillar is held by shoulder of pillar. the rear pillar is under the trigger guard so its a little easier on the nerves to play with.
Bedding has DEFINITELY helped on the ones I've done. One of those was a Stocky's Bobby Hart model.

---

it is a BOYDs laminate stock so no original pillars.

You don't rally need pillars. Just the bedding will be enough. IMO