Center bedding

[Peter Laidler]

When I was much younger, my friend and I used to build specialised engines for modified sports car racing teams. He had a thing about people who insisted on us lightening flywheels past a certain matematically worked out point - a point of diminishing returns in effect! I feel the same whenever I read those words 'centre bedding' or 'coke can shims' or 'credit card plastic' or 'barrel down thrust..........'

One of the great tutors at Shrivenham (he's passed on now and I forget his name that's on the tip of my tongue.....) always used to bang on about barrels (if you'll excuse the pun.....) by repeatedly telling us that what the part of the barrel IN FRONT of the moving projectile was doing, was more important and had more influence on the projectile than the part of the barrel it had already passed through - if that makes sense! And it's true. Think about it.............. The bullet has already been there and it's the rest of the barrel that is going to influence it from now on.

I think about this when I hear about centre bedding. Like I said, some swear by it - just like the proverbial long lost auntie who smokes 60 full strength cigs a day. But not me...........................

[Thunderbox]

I've always found centre-bedding to be extremely marginal in .303 - most of my best shooters have been standard.

Centre-bedded SRb rifles from the likes of Fultons, Stensby, A J Parker, etc, have a small statistical accuracy advantage over standard rifles for the simple reason that they were all hand built - i.e. 100% of that sample group have had attention to their set-up, whereas x% of standard rifles will probably have not had any attention since they left service, or have never been properly fitted.

The only time I ever centre bed a rifle is as a last resort when a numbered original forend is too banana-shaped to be adjusted for standard bedding....

[bow]

The only time I ever centre bed a rifle is as a last resort when a numbered original forend is too banana-shaped to be adjusted for standard bedding

That's what i mean. Center beddig s fore-end is a way to save it.