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barrels ring like a tubular bell when a shot is fired. The heavier and stiffer the barrel is, the less it vibrates. a fluted heavy barrel will vibrate a lot less than a whip thin barrel on a scout carbine. That is why target rifles use heavy tubes.
A floated barrel works best for heavy barrels for a single reason. When the vibration is damped to the level that a really heavy barrel reaches, any sort of contact with the stock will interfere with the normal oscilations.
The whip thin barrels need a different damping method. So, a slight pressure is added symmetrically to the bottom of the barrel at forend. It dampens the vibration some. Badly done, it can actually worsen accuracy, but in most cases, a forend pad in the barrel channel does what it is supposed to. It makes the barrel vibrations a shorter wavelength.
The simple answer is that you should not float a hunting barrel unless it is stringing shots badly. BADLY. When you do float it, be prepared to re-bed it with a better control bead if your accuracy suffers.
I must have missed the part about this being 1/4 of an inch. That is really insignificant, and you may never determine exactly why your rifle is going off zero by the equivalent of only 1/2 inch at 100 yards. A hunting rifle is expected to make 1 to 1-1/2 inch groups, and this meets those expectations.
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