No.4 barrel support vs sporter?

[browningautorifle]

Free floating barrels are accurate. When they have full wood and something bears against them, they need to be regulated. Otherwise they shy away from the spot they bear. Lots of things are involved that aren't there when the wood is shorter. There'll be more along to explain again in a minute.

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[Ridolpho]

An easy enough experiment- free float a full length No. 4 forend after first grouping it with the proper forend pressure. Easy to do and I somehow suspect the main users (ie. military)might have tried it over the decades of use. The No. 1 Rifle, on the other hand, with its skinnier barrel is documented as being very innacurate free-floated. Perhaps the sporterized No. 4's (numbered in the thousands) provide adequate short range hunting accuracy but "accuracy" has to be defined. The acceptable dispersion for a normally bedded No. 4 is well known. It would be interesting to hear case histories of actually seriously tested free floated rifles.

Ridolpho