Free Floating a MkII Barrel

[Cycler]

I have MkII GL, the left handed plain-jane version of the MkII with a standard configuration "hardwood" stock and it shoots reasonably well.

However, I was wondering if it's worth sanding out the barrel channel to free float the barrel. Currently, I can't slip a piece of paper through the channel with the barreled action installed so the barrel is touching the stock at several places and this can't be doing the accuracy any good. Has anyone done this and did it help?

[thirty06]

I would say yes. How much it will help depends on each rifle.
It might help a lot or it might not. It sure won't hurt anything.

[TOP PREDATOR]

yeah have done it to every thing i got, even before i shot it.

good way to make it nice and even using a section of pipe and sandpaper:
[img width=600 height=447]http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/WALTERRO/MKII%20F/MKIIF007.jpg[/img]
before
[img width=600 height=447]http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/WALTERRO/MKII%20F/MKIIF008.jpg[/img]
after
[img width=600 height=447]http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu54/WALTERRO/MKII%20F/MKIIF011.jpg[/img]

[Josh Smith]

For skinnier sporting barrels, glass bedding is probably the best bet. This is what we use for old military rifles (Mosin-Nagant etc).

If you heat a skinny sporter barrel up at all, you're going to start shooting circles, literally.

[img width=337 height=450]http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b191/WabashShootist/Guns/M44/withglasses2.jpg[/img]

[img width=600 height=450]http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b191/WabashShootist/Guns/M44/Shootinupammo.jpg[/img]

Granted, this is a .30-06 class centerfire, and it'll take longer for a rimfire to do this, and it won't be as pronounced.

The fix was to smooth out the barrel bed and shim the barrel in the style of the Finnish. It settled down after that.

Pressure points on the barrel aren't bad; you just have to know where they're at and control them.

Josh

[Cycler]

I did the job using pretty much Top Predator's technique, a 4" length of 1/4" pipe wrapped in coarse sand paper. It turned out the barrel wasn't straight in it's channel and I had to sand more material off the right side to get it totally clear of the wood. I stained the raw wood and sealed it with three coats of Tru-Oil. I hope to get it to the range in a few days and see what I accomplished.

Now that the off-center "problem" is fixed we'll see if shimming the tip of the stock is needed to improve grouping.