Hi cwlongshot ,
I am from England and live out on the East Coast now and so have to deal with the most stupid and dictatorial Police Firearms Licensing Department possibly in the whole country
this bunch don't care what the law says they make it up as they go along
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Now the majority of my rifles are as they came from the factory a couple were free floated that was one of them has been a major pain to get consisitancy out of. This one is a Parker-Hale 1200V (Varmint) with a heavy barrel chambered for 6mm Remington. I got it used as I didn't have a 1200V chamberign didn't matter to me but it was nearly a year before I could shoot it. Didn't realise just how difficult it would be to get 6mm Rem componants
and it was only a couple of weeks back that I fianlly managed to obtain some factory (Winchester) 100 grain 6mm Rem ammo. We even tried orderign from the Remington importers but gave up after waiting months with no sign of any ammo plus they want ridiculas amounts of money for it. How about $200 for 100 rounds
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So it turns out that a previous owner had tried to improve the factory bedding ( plastic bedded and free floated from the factory) the bedding material was no longer adhering to the wood so I removed it and used a brownells Glasbed kit to re-do the bedding. The rifle now shoots consistantly even if it's not as accurate as I thought a heavy barreled varmint rifle would be, but then we have no way of knowing how many bullets have gone down that bore
I have fired over 500 in testing and load developmentbut now it will shoot 15 rounds in a group of 1.2" which I shot on Sunday in far from ideal conditions as the sun was shining right into the scope.
The other factory floated rifle is a Mauser M96 Slide Bolt in 6.5x55 and apart from cleaning and adding the scope and mounts it's as it came out of the box. it seems to prefer the 140 grain bullets rather than the 120 grain Speers that I like.
I am not impressed by the "Free Float" mantra that chanted as the cure all. before I realised it was a lot of smoke and mirrors I did free float a sporterised Swedish Mauser that i brought, it's one of those commercially adapted ones done by a firm in the US however we are unable to say for certain which firm did it. However it's accurate, I di have the bolt handle changed as the firm who cadapted it just bent the original down and it was a might short and required really high mounts.
Funnily enough the most accurate rifle I own is tightly bedded in a nice walnut stock and it was done by hand with no fillers used
however as it is a bespoke bench made rifle and a one off it's not a production model
not lie the BSA CF2's I have or the P-H 1100's. I did have a new P-H 1200 Super bedded as it was made during the take over period which led to Parker-Hale's demise and the quality of the inlettign work was very poor which showed on the targets as it shot groups of 2"-3" at 100 yards so i carved out soem wood and bedded it but accidently put in a bit too much and ended up with a floated barrel. So after it all cured I tried it at the range and was embarressed to discover that it now shot 6"-8" groups like that. So card shims were added under the barrel at the fore tip until the groups shrank down to MOA then it was sent off to ahev a professional job done on it with that pressure on the barrel. Les who did the job has done it well and it is unoticable to the eye that it's bedded but it now shoots MOA with Privi Partesen 196 grain SP ammo, it's chambered in 7.92mm, if P-h had still been in operation the rifle would have been returned to them for correction but I brought it several years after then closed. The 7.92mm was a special export run and a few made it onto the market here and one dealer seemed to get them all. I remembered the advert and phoned them on the off chance and they still had a couple left
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I have one more rifle that will go the Les for renovation this time it's a 1960's BSA Majestic Featherweight in 243 that has the BESA recoil reducer machined into the muzzle which is why i brought it. It;s the only one I had seen in the flesh so to speak and as a bonus it had the "Range Adaptor" fitted which is a sleeve that covers the BESA to shut it off to make it quieter for covered range use. A previous owner had been taken in by the free float mantra and tried to do so but in fact they ruind the inletting and the action was rocking liek a see saw in the stock. The barrel channel had been so hogged out that I had to use wood filler to bring it back
and I used the same filler to bed the action and on testing the rifle was not very accurate. So careful examination revealed heavy copper fouling and on removing the "Range Adaptor" I found very heavy powder fouling in the BESA slots. I doubt it had ever been cleaned. I had to resort to drastic measures to remove it and it took a week to clean the barrel with copper remover. After cleaning the rifle shot much better so instead of attacking the bedding the previous owner would have ben betetr off cleaning the bore
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Once I save some money up the rifle will go off to Les for a renovation and regulation to shoot factory 100 grain ammo, probably Federal, and with some luck he will be able to restore the stock and inletting so it looks like it did as it came from the factory if not I am afraid we are looking at a replacement stock
which is a pity as it's a nice piece of honey coloured walnut on it now.
None of my 22LR rifles have been tinkered with except one which I cut the barrel back to 16 1/2" and threaded it 1/2" UNF for a sound Moderator they are as they came to me and for are as they left the factory one a BSA 12/15 Martini has had the butt shortened by a preivous owner and they all shoot betetr than I do almost. The almost is a BSA No1A pattern single shot bolt action made pre WW1 that has a corroded bore probably due to black powder however it will still shoot well under 1" groups at 25 metres. More usage might improve this but at present it's on my licence for "Collection Only" and not shooting so I only tested it just after acquiring it.
