Free floating a Marlin XL7 30-06

[pollo]

Hi all,

I tried swiping a dollar bill between the barrel and the stock and found that it would not go. The Marlins are supposed to come "free floated", but mine isn't. Mine is a REP stamped barrel, it was made last year (2012). Would you recommend free floating? If so, what are the steps I'll need to take to free float? Also, if you have any other recommendations for improving accuracy, please post as I'm a rookie.

[Bart B.]

First off, I'd let Marlin know their stuff's not up to advertised specs.

I don't think a dollar bill's a good thing to measure clearance between a stock's fore end and the barrel. They're only about .004" thick and normal pressure on the fore end by the shooter will easily bend the fore end enough to touch the barrel. When that happens, no more free floating. This "dollar bill clearance" myth is as old as the hills and was conjured up by some ignorant person many decades ago who did not know the realities of how much fore ends' bend. May have been the same person who came up with the idea that a rimless bottleneck cases lays in the bottom of its chamber when fired.

Measure how much your rifle's fore end bends as it rests horizontally on something compared to pointing straight up not resting on anything.

You need at least 1/16th inch to be on the safe side, especially if you bear down hard on the stock's cheek piece shooting the rifle as it rests atop something on a bench.

Remove the barreled action then wrap coarse, medium then fine sandpaper on a round thing and remove stock material. Do it so there's more of a gap at the tip than at the receiver; there's more movement at its tip than at the receiver where it's about zero. Refinish the sanded surfaces if needed.

The only other thing that typically helps is to full contact epoxy bed the receiver.