I've been convinced that bedding is a positive step towards accurizing a rifle. I performed this on my .204 and the job looks really good. I have also been led to believe that the smaller the barrel the more support it likes. This gun has the usual support at the end of the stock so I didn't mess with it at this time. I loaded five shot groups and found that my gun liked nothing. When I dissasembled the gun to look it over I noticed that the barrel did not sit in the bottom of the stock, but rather at the four to five o'clock position. I feel that this was a problem because the barrel was held only by one spot instead of held solidly around the barrel. I filed this area out and glassed this area, perfect right?
Well here is my question, the barrel is now in perfect alignment, but has no pressure holding the barrel in any one direction. You can unseat the barrel very easily by hand where prior it required quite a bit of pressure to do this. Should I have maybe placed a shim below the action to do the barrel bedding job, then when removed there would be say .002 or so pressure along with the barrel being supported half way around to create a more stable barrel? Thanks Larry