The Accurate Rifle - How to Free Float a Rifle Barrel

In this video Larry Potterfield, Founder and CEO of MidwayUSA, explains not only how to check if a rifle barrel is free floated but also demonstrates how to remove any wood to metal contact if it isn't. This process helps ensure that a rifle can reach its ultimate accuracy potential, regardless of the weather conditions.

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Howto & Style

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• 8127
• Accuracy
• Vignette
• Free
• Floating
• Barrel
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[seriouslyhuman]

It was refreshing not to hear "first make sure your firearm is unloaded".

[joshdrobny]

@Cafferssss simply put, when a rifle fires, the barrel will flex and vibrate minutely as the bullet travels down it. if anything is contacting the barrel it affects the way this occurs, thus affecting accuracy.

[Cafferssss]

why does a free floating barrel help increase accuracy?

[onekwickss]

@godslayer7771 Thats actually not true. Depending on the rifle, a synthetic stock can have imperfections in it as well. When the action is tightened down you may hit one of these imperfections and slightly tweak your accuracy. To make matters worse, if you are not torquing the action to the same tightness each time, it can affect your accuracy differently each time you remove and replace the stock.

[godslayer7771]

@AmericaStandsStrong1 You dont need to. The only reason to free float a barrel is if you have a wooden stock because the wood and expands and contracts under cold or hot conditions causing stress on the barrel.

[AmericaStandsStrong1]

@Rygel Don't think so.

[Rygel]

@AmericaStandsStrong1 Yeah, how do you ground down a synthetic? Is there any protection that needs to be applied on the synthetic after its ground down, like they did above?

[AmericaStandsStrong1]

@Rygel What do you mean? Like how do you free float a synthetic?

[Rygel]

@AmericaStandsStrong1 How?

[AmericaStandsStrong1]

@68Pontiac100 Yes