Is this normal of a gun to move in its stock?

Question

My rem700 has a Bell And Carlson a2 stock, and it free floated, butt the gun barrel moves just enough to be noticed when I apply pressure in either direction, it does not touch the stock though. Ever since I purchased the stock, accuracy has taken a turn for the worse, and I cant figure out why. And if this slight amount of play is not the culprit of poor accuracy, any clues as to what is?
Thanks

Answer 1

It's normal, but not what you'd like. You can try bedding it better. But you may still have problems. It's quite possible that the decreased accuracy is from the fact that the barrel is free-floated. There's a myth that free-floating always improves accuracy. Remington disagrees, and puts a pressure point at the fore-end to dampen barrel whip. Bed first, and make sure everything else is up to snuff, but you may wind up having to replace that pressure point. From personal experience, I can tell you that it's a tedious job.

Answer 2

Hey Stanley,



The barrel may move slightly when you put pressure on it (especially if it is free floated) but the important question is does the action move in the stock. First off check that the front and rear screws that hold the action to the stock are tight. When you say the barrel moves does it move and spring back or move and stay there? If it moves and stays in the new position then the action is also moving you have a bedding problem. Even if it springs back glass/pillar bedding will certainly improve the accuracy. With all that being said if your barrel is a light weight contour barrel you may find that it shoots better with some up pressure on the for-end tip as opposed to free floated. After glass bedding it stick a couple of business cards between the barrel and the for-end to give a slight amount of up pressure and see how it groups. If that improves it then make up a glass pad on the inside of the for-end to give you the same amount of tension. Asking about bedding kind of opens Pandora's box but I hope this answers your question without getting too complex.

Answer 3

Plastic stocks have flex. Barrels flex. If you are grabbing the forearm and pushing and pulling on the barrel, you will notice movement. My son has a Rem 700 SPS Varmint. With the factory stock, moving the rifle around would cause as much as a 2" change in POI at 100 yds. He replaced it with a B&C but I am not sure which model. It shoots touching bullet holes at 100 yds with handloads. It does have an aluminum bedding block. To put a stock on a rifle, you need to seat the action to the back of the stock and properly tighten the mounting screws. A Wheeler F.A.T. helps a lot. You could try the other stock and see how it does. It may be time to clean the bore of your barrel.

Answer 4

You didn't say the action moves; you said the barrel moves. The A-2 is designed to by used with a free-floating barrel; consequently, a little BARREL movement is acceptable. Glass-bedding the receiver might help. So might changing to a different shaped bullet or bullet weight.



Did you torqued the action incorrectly when you installed it? Always tighten the rear action screw, first, before you tighten down front screw. J. De Witt is correct that free-floating a barrel does not always improve accuracy. (Which is, 'Why' I like to additionally pillar-bed an otherwise free-floating barrel.)

Answer 5

Movement in a standard gun is in no way normal and may be cured by tightening screws in the upper receiver area of the stock. The stock should not effect the actual accuracy of the rifle but can when you are aiming the piece and it moves it from its original position of sighting from where you normally seat it. In accuracy terms your MOA will always be teh saem unless you changed the rifling so your rifle is as accurate as ever it seems that the play in the stock is causing some diffference in your eye position or how the barrel lays when you are pulling the trigger.

Answer 6

Too little info, but:

How are you 'applying that pressure?

If it's against the stock, is it the barrel moving? or the stock?

How well is the action bedded in that new stock?

Did you 'glass it in" or just bolt it on?

Poor action bedding is a sure-fire accuracy killer.

Is your Rem. a light barrel model?

Some of those are best with a bit of vibration damping from forearm stock pressure,

and lose accuracy when 'free floated'.

Answer 7

Sometimes the free float just is a little loose, not a problem.

If you have the money you can get it glass bedded which would be really nice

Answer 8

My brother states:



The gun isn't supposed to move in its stock, that may be the reason for your worsened accuracy. It's vital of you to get a new stock because wobbly stocks can cause breaks in the gun's surface which could weaken it over time, and also ruins your accuracy completely.

Answer 9

Applying pressure on a free floated barrel will make barrel move. With the mounting screws properly tightened, the barrel will return to location before pressure was applied. The barreled action will not move and that is good for accuracy.

Applying same pressure on a barrel with screws loose will make for barrel not returning to the same place. And will make the complete barreled action come to rest in a different location which is not good for accuracy.



You can do two things to check barreled action to stock fit.

First...

fasten all screws just snugged up

tap the stock on the floor. this will move action to the rear and most importantly move the recoil lug against the surface it bears against.

tighten screws with more pressure, the front screw will have more pressure than the rear and the rear will have more pressure than the middle. and do not over tighten this third screw as it just holds the trigger guard in place and need not be overly tight. IF THIS SCREW causes barreled action to flex, that is to bow or bend down as the screw is tightened, this will cause accuracy to suffer. Why? because there is not enough material between trigger guard and stock to take the pressure of the screw being tightened. If this happens you can do two things to cure this problem...one do not over tighten screw, and/or two add material to the area on stock.

if your model rifle does not have a middle screw disregard tightening procedure for screw not there.

Second

With screws properly tightened...

recoil lug backed against it's resting place

front screw tight, rear screw less tight and middle snugged to hold trigger guard in place

place fingers on opposite sides of receiver over screw you will loosen, you will do this procedure for each mount screw on rifle

loosen screw and feel for movement of receiver above screw you loosened. Write if receiver moved or not and properly retighten all screws and proceed to test other screws.

If receiver moved, then there is a barreled action to stock bedding problem which is cured by epoxy bedding the stock on screw hole location.

If you do not know how to do this, I recommend taking complete rifle to a gunsmith and have him do bedding test and bedding if needed.



A quick cure is to add a shim of correct thickness under receiver of screw that caused movement with trial and error. Shims should be in the .001, .002, .005, .010 inches or so thick and made of either stainless steel or brass and cut to shape to fit under and tapered up the sides of stock to tighten up fit.



Other things to think about are.

length of pull of replacement stock

eye relief, rear lens element of scope to eye

cheek placement, cheek weld

level...bolt raceway surface level, scope cross hairs level

trigger pull excessive

shooting procedure consistent? as changing shooting position each shot or after a series of shots will cause bullet to change impact point. same with changing shooting rests and shooting rest positions on forend.

never ever rest barrel on anything as this will ruin accuracy

shooting on a windy day will/may ruin accuracy



Ammunition. Your rifle may have a preference for the ammo you fed it. Honest. Buy one box each of several brands. And shoot 3 rounds out of each box at a paper target. Do this with each box ammo.

The ammo that prints the smallest group is your work ammo.



Cleaning. Clean barrel bore, chamber and bolt lockup area. Oil lightly. Then before going out shooting, clean oil out of barrel bore and chamber. Or, at range shoot several rounds until oil is burned out of barrel before shooting for accuracy. You will notice bullet groups shrink as oil is burned out of bore. If not, there is some other problem, loose screws, bad ammo, etc.



Barrel twist rate. Bring the box of ammo with you to a gunsmith and have g/s check twist rate of your rifle to the bullets you are shooting out of your rifle. What with all these new bullets being introduced, you may be using a bullet to long or of the wrong weight.



Reloaded ammo. Whew, this is getting overly long. So. If shooting reloads, switch to factory as per procedure above to check your rifle out. If accuracy improves, stick to factory ammo and work on improving your reloading procedure and or components.