Another Poor Accuracy Thread

Recently bought a high serial numbered Eddystone that is shooting badly.:mad: It is shooting 8 to 10 inch groups at 100 yards from a bench rest. It has a great bore, good crown and very little throat erosion. Their is some barrel wobble in the stock. The barrel is not firmly fixed in the stock. I am wondering if glass bedding applied in the barrel channel at the tip of the fore end would stabilize the barrel and provide the up pressure needed to make it more accurate.

Has anyone done this with success?

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Originally Posted by MOS-45

It is shooting 8 to 10 inch groups at 100 yards from a bench rest.

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Are you sure its the rifle? Did you try more than one type of ammunition? I see a lot of rifles when I'm working at the range that have crap for groups but tighten up with a different brand or bullet weight.

The stock has dried and shrunk away from the barrel. You need to shim under the barrel in the area of the front band. Make the shim from stable wood. It will only need to be a few thousands thick. Drive it in from the front under the centerline of the barrel. Going around the sides of the barrel isn't necessary which is why glass bedding isn't recommended. Tighten it up so the front band can be removed with a little effort but not too tight that it can't be removed.
I have done this to a P14 and a Model 1917 with excellent results.

Here you can see the shimming I've done. The Model 1917 is 2 thin shims directly under the centerline of the bore. The P14 required much more wood. You can see the shim here prior to trimming.
The wood I used was from a scrap Savage No4 fore end stock. 75 year old walnut is very stable and won't be shrinking much with time.

The P14 barrel has more wear than the Model 1917 and went from patterning to grouping MOA. The Model 1917 has a pristine barrel and went from shooting wide groups to shooting 1/2 MOA groups. All of course with my handloads.

A friend of mine who shoots an M'17 in CMP vintage matches got the same result as oldfoneguy by shimming up the rear of the receiver under the tang. Make sure it doesn't get bound at the muzzle end. The barrel needs a tiny L-R and upwards movement there but should have a bearing on the underside.

Thank you for the suggestions folks. I will try this.