Bedding the Forend-- Float v.s. Full Lengh Bedding

[RickC.]

Which is better?  Why?


         Thanks,


               Rick

[quickdtoo]

I think full length bedding is probably the better choice since there's no way to completely float the barrel.

Tim

[McLernon]

I think that the best way is to pillar bed the stock for the uniform tighness that only pillar bedding with metal-to-metal contact can provide. Then free float by about 0.050 inches in front of the screw for about 1 inch to the end of the fore-stock.

That's my $0.02 worth

Mc

[PartsMan]

My 223 hb shot good stock but if you slid forarm fore or aft on rest.
Point of impact would shift almost a foot at 100yd.
I tried the o ring and it helped stringing but groups got a little bigger.
Now I have a synthetic stock on it. They don't offer this with heavy barrel.
The forarm is a really, really tight on the barrel. Effectivly bedding.
This gun Is dead on Now. I mean 3 shots in 1.5 holes.

[Survivor]

Barr25-06.  What caliber is your Handi? So you like that synthetic forend?  No O ring in it? (also not bedded)  I'm running myself in circles over this. Small detail with drastic results.   ???THNX

[sluggo]

 Quick is right as usual...lol...since the barrel and action are seperate, you can't truely float the barrel. And one of the reasons you get fliers when you use your forearm as a resting point is your changing your barrel's harmonics.

[Survivor]

So the obvious method at hand would be to somehow hold the rifle steady in exactly the same way every shot.   Wow.  No pressure...no pun intended.  So it still seems good to add a little material and make as tight a fit between rear forend and barrel.  Yes?  What else?

[PartsMan]

Its a 223 heavy barrel 22"
I love the synthetic stock. Traded my wood one for it here.
This rifle does not have o ring.
My 25-06 does best with two o-rings though.
One on stud and a bigger one were the stud mounts to barrel.
You just have to try different things with these guns.

[Survivor]

Just about to wear a hole in this forend thing but just humor me   O rings come stock or are they a hardware store item?  THNX

[backstrap]

No o rings dont come with the gun its a custom thing people are doing to float the barrel from the mounting forearm bolt forward and back to the reciver. u get them at a hradware store or automotive store

[backstrap]

This o ring holds your forearm off the barrel is all it is doing u might have to sand paper your stock in side a little bit to make sure its not tuching the barrel i had to on my wood stock.if yours is a wood stock, dont know if you can do the O ring thing on a sinthetic stock i have a sinthetic stock on my 243 i dont shot it much like i do my 223 so i just leave it sighted in for deer hunting shoot it a few time before deer  season make sure its on  it sets in the gun case untell hunting seasons here and when hunting seasons over its back to seting in the gun case so i cant tell u any thing about senthetic stocks. but i didnt do the o ring thing to my 223 tell about a mounth ago and have have it sence 1989 and it seems to shoot better with the barrel floated

[Fred M]

The simplistic O-ring job may help some, but if you really want to get better accuracy you need to unify the whole system. There are simply too many loose joints in a Handi that can't be cured with a simple o-ring.

Free floating the forward few inches on the forearm ain't going to do it either.
Full bedding with uplift is the only way to get consistent forearm behavior and it matters not at which point of the forearm you rest the rifle. Two Handi rifles of mine bedded in this manner will shoot three shot groups at a 1/2" or less at 100.

Read my Accurizing suggestions in the FAQ.

[Survivor]

Fred, I really like your process.  The article is a little hard for me to follow without having my rifle yet.  The schematic I downloaded uses different terms than you do in some cases I think which doesn't help either.  But I think I get most of it.  I get a little confused with the cap shimming and the uplift instructions.  I'll read it a couple more times and get to know the rifle this weekend I hope.  I crutch on visual aids.  That's my brain for you.    

[Fred M]

Survivor.
If you don't understand it and or get confused, I better have another look at it to see if I can remove the confusion. My writing is no good if you can't understand it.

The plastic hinge piece on the forearm needs to be fitted really close. The four thin wedges will be glued to the fore arm wood only. With the forearm held in place with the forearm screw the wedges are tapped in so that the hinge piece is tight against the action or rather very snug.

Make sure the wedges are not glued to the hinge piece too, apply release agent to the plastic hinge piece. Clean it well before the bedding in your next step.

Once the wedges are glued solid, you remove the fore arm making sure not to disturb the wedges. You then mix your steel bed and apply it to the hinge piece and the wood and put the forearm back on with the screw. At this point you can rotate the forearm to line it up with the hinge piece and let things set up.

After that the two wood screws are reinstalled. Next step is to solid bed the hinge piece and bit of the stock and the forearm tip. Shim the stock screw so the stock is parallel with the barrel and the stock has 1/8” clearance between the two bedding blocks. No clearance on the sides. Or very little.

Once the bedding blocks are set up solid. The space between the blocks is now filled with Silicon caulking of Dow foam. The screw is now tightened to actually bend the forearm up and puts uplift on both the front and back block. Mark the screw to see how much up lift you get use a scale on the fore arm tip, you want about 15lbs uplift.

Once you have every thing lined up and tensioned correctly mark the screw position
and take the forearm off and steel bed the screw lug on the forward edge and bottom. Apply release agent to the lug and put the forearm back on. You are done.

Read this in conjunction with my write up.

[Survivor]

Humor me.

It seems like after the wedges have been glued (making a tight fit within the hinge) your applying bedding compound over the wedges and their juction with the stock as a sort of reinforcement process. I'll get back to u.

[Fred M]

Survivor
No, the gap you created with the wedges is filled in with brown colored Steel bed.
When every thing is hard the wedges are trimmed flush. We are only talking about less than a 16th inch. A small 3/16 wide wedge will hardly show up when touched up with bit of stain.

No, you don't put steel bed over the wedges if you can help it.
No, it is not an reinforcement it just fills in the gap between the plastic hinge piece and the stock.

You know the operation still takes a bit of imagination. I did not have anybody to write me three pages of instructions when I first did the job. Keep in mind of what it is you want to do and perhaps you will better understand.