[52981]

is there anything i can do to accurize my marlin 17 HMR? i have heard of moly fusion but i dont know what it really does. what about bedding and trigers and stuff? just anything that could help me.

thanks

 

[huntnfish08]

marlin accurizing

The quickest easiest cheapest way to make a real impact is a pen trigger job. Do a search here. It works great and takes only about 5-10 minutes and a clicky ball point pen.
Lightens the trigger pull from about 7#s to 3#s.

Check to make sure the barrel is freefloated by running a dolllar bill between the barrel and fore stock.

 

[52981]

cool man nice tip

 

[RimfireAU]

what kind of scope do you have on there

 

[pmullineaux]

ahem!!!! this should be a sticky somewhere, not sure exactly where, but we may need a general overall thread, showing no cost, low cost, and higher cost and time accurizing tips, for all rifles!!!! who agrees with me guys? and of course we could be free to add to it, as the moderator sees fit.
not to pat my own back, but I wrote down most of these, I would give us the Al Gore answer, and say I invented them as well, but I am not that much of a jackasp!!!!
http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227356

 

[benzy2]

On mine I did three things that made the gun shoot really well. First was to wrap a socket from a wrench set in sand paper and sand the barrel channel out until the barrel was free floating. Mine was close from the factory but when it got warm it touched. Then I tried the pen spring trick. It was mediocre at best. If you like good triggers it doesn't do anything for creep and it only lightens the pull to at best a safe light hunting trigger and when you get fairly light you can no longer take the bolt out. I bought a Rifle Basix trigger and LOVE it. Totally turned the gun around over night. It is the best money I could have spent. Finally I bedded the rifle. Bedding has made it much more consistent. Between the three I love the way my gun shoots. It does way better than I should be getting for what I have paid. There is a ton of other stuff you can do at various price ranges but I am perfectly satisfied with what I have for the money and effort I put in.

 

[52981]

On mine I did three things that made the gun shoot really well. First was to wrap a socket from a wrench set in sand paper and sand the barrel channel out until the barrel was free floating. Mine was close from the factory but when it got warm it touched. Then I tried the pen spring trick. It was mediocre at best. If you like good triggers it doesn't do anything for creep and it only lightens the pull to at best a safe light hunting trigger and when you get fairly light you can no longer take the bolt out. I bought a Rifle Basix trigger and LOVE it. Totally turned the gun around over night. It is the best money I could have spent. Finally I bedded the rifle. Bedding has made it much more consistent. Between the three I love the way my gun shoots. It does way better than I should be getting for what I have paid. There is a ton of other stuff you can do at various price ranges but I am perfectly satisfied with what I have for the money and effort I put in.

thanks, atleast you gave me a good direction to start from. also how hard is it to make the barrel free floating just with the stuff you have at home. yes i do have alot of sockets. and also again could you explain alittle more on how you got bedding work done?

Thanks for the help

 

[shaneman153d]

Here's a good write-up explaining barrel / receiver bedding

http://www.rifleshootermag.com/gunsmithing/bedding_0304/

 

[whiffelball]

I agree about the no buck/low buck mods that everyone should be aware of. Also would be nice to have warnings to people who are just getting started to avoid jumping in to "stoning the sear" which could bring an unhappy ending to someone's only rifle.

 

[52981]

Can you free float a barrel thats on a synthetic stock?
or do you not need to free float a synthetic stock?

 

[shaneman153d]

As I understand it, a synthetic stock will not change with temp changes / humidity, etc. So good or bad, it should be consistant. Have you checked to see if you can pass a dollar bill under the barrel cold and warm? You should already be at least partially floated, to where the barrel tapers. From what the article says, you would benefit best by bedding the receiver.

I am by no means an expert on this, but I always understood the benefit of a synthetic stock is that the stock will not warp, throwing off harmonics, thus throwing off POI.

Maybe a bedding guru can clarify for us?

 

[medic52]

New trigger RBX, floated the barrell on my 917VS the gun is GREAT I've had some groups at 50 yards that have been GREAT. Mine loves the Hornady 17 gr vmax.

 

[rcrdps]

Headspacing

Get a feeler guage set. Take out the clip, load a bullet, lock the bolt, and use the feelers to see how much "slack" there is between the back of the bullet and the bolt. You can insert the corner of the feeler through the hole where the clip came out of. Then either sacrifice the feeler that fits( or a size smaller), or go to mcmaster.com and get some raw feeler guage in that size and cut it to a slightly smaller diameter than your bolt. Take the pin out of your bolt that holds the front and rear pieces together, and drill a hole in your feeler piece that matches the diamter of the inner shaft. Put the feeler there, and reassemble.

Now you have a "headspaced" bolt with a thousandth or less space,...depending on what size feeler you bought. If I remember correctly, mine was like 7 thousandths from the factory. Now it's less than a thou.

Obviously, this isn't for everyone, and not a top mod. You may have to sand a bit on the inside of your bolt to make room for the shim. The results are surely hardly measurable. But it's just another thing to do to make your gun just that much better.

Gene

 

[benzy2]

thanks, atleast you gave me a good direction to start from. also how hard is it to make the barrel free floating just with the stuff you have at home. yes i do have alot of sockets. and also again could you explain alittle more on how you got bedding work done?

Thanks for the help

On a wood stock it is very easy to make the barrel float. I take a piece of sand paper and lay rough side down in the barrel channel. Then I put a long socket on top of the smooth side of the sand paper. The socket acts as a guide so that you can control the sand paper easily and get a smooth, round channel. I move the sand paper and the socket together up and down the channel. I test fit often and look to see where the barrel contacts the channel and sand that area the heaviest until the barrel floats. Most people say that a business card thickness is good enough as when the barrel heats up it can move that much. I personally like to go shoot right after I think I am done opening the channel up and I shoot as fast as I think I ever would to see if the barrel really does stay floating or not.

Bedding has a million variations out there that all seem to do good work. A big part of bedding is finding a good epoxy to use. You can't go wrong with an epoxy specifically made for bedding but they are expensive. Devcon has a putty a lot of people love. The big key is to look for something that takes a LONG time to set and be fully cured. The general rule is the longer it takes to cure the harder it gets and hard is what we want. There are a ton of articles out there that describe the epoxies people much more experienced than me like. You also need a quality release agent to put on the metal parts so they don't get glued into place. I use Kiwi neutral colored shoe polish and it has worked well on every rifle I have done.

After you pick an epoxy the basic idea of glass bedding (bedding with epoxy) is to make a perfect mold for the receiver to sit in. Some rifles with laminate stocks or even more so quality synthetic stocks only need to have a thin layer of epoxy applied to get this glove fit. These stocks are already naturally stiff and either unaffected or only slightly effected by environment changes and as such don't warp. A regular wood stock will warp as temperature and humidity change. Since the epoxy is very stiff it can stop this from happening but you need a thicker layer to have enough strength. As such, where ever you plan on using epoxy that will touch the receiver you will want to remove at least 1/8" of wood to give a nice thick epoxy bed.

On cheap synthetic stocks (the VAST majority) the synthetic material is flimsy. Some are weak enough they bow when the rifle is rested on them while others feel solid but flex during recoil. In a rimfire flex during recoil is much less important than in a heavy hitter centerfire. A quality synthetic stock will cost you as much as a really nice wood stock would so it is a bit of personal preference. A cheap synthetic stock normally benefits from having some sort of reinforcement such as steel rods or arrow shafts glued into the inside of the stock. This will give you the rigidity of a quality stock which from there can be bedded without having to take much if any material off of the stock before bedding. So while it is possible it is a bit more effort to bed a cheap synthetic stock. Even high end stocks should be bedded with epoxy. Even the stocks that come with metal bedding blocks need to be bedded. No two rifles are exactly the same and a coat of epoxy will make the stock fit to the action perfectly.

As for the exact steps there are tons of quality directions on this site and many others. I would google it and see what all you came up with. I know this site, savageshooters.com and 6mmbr.com have GREAT descriptions on how to bed a rifle with far better detail than I could ever get.

Can you free float a barrel thats on a synthetic stock?
or do you not need to free float a synthetic stock?

Free floating a barrel is important in any stock. You want to do it in both synthetic and wood stocks. Any pressure that can vary (such as stock to barrel as the barrel heats up/cools down) is bad. The barrel doesn't care if it is rubbing on synthetic material or wood, it will be bad either way. Free floating a synthetic stock is a little different though you are doing the same thing. A lot of synthetic stocks only have cross ribs that will touch the barrel instead of the entire channel. As such you only have to remove a smaller area to get the entire channel to be floated. The problem is a lot of stocks gum up sand paper in a hurry. I use a dremel with a sanding disk and set it to low speed. I try to go very slow as synthetics will often melt if done too fast which makes a big mess and a lot of work to get clean. So while it for me uses different tools it results in the same thing as floating a wood stock.

 

[52981]

On a wood stock it is very easy to make the barrel float. I take a piece of sand paper and lay rough side down in the barrel channel. Then I put a long socket on top of the smooth side of the sand paper. The socket acts as a guide so that you can control the sand paper easily and get a smooth, round channel. I move the sand paper and the socket together up and down the channel. I test fit often and look to see where the barrel contacts the channel and sand that area the heaviest until the barrel floats. Most people say that a business card thickness is good enough as when the barrel heats up it can move that much. I personally like to go shoot right after I think I am done opening the channel up and I shoot as fast as I think I ever would to see if the barrel really does stay floating or not.

Bedding has a million variations out there that all seem to do good work. A big part of bedding is finding a good epoxy to use. You can't go wrong with an epoxy specifically made for bedding but they are expensive. Devcon has a putty a lot of people love. The big key is to look for something that takes a LONG time to set and be fully cured. The general rule is the longer it takes to cure the harder it gets and hard is what we want. There are a ton of articles out there that describe the epoxies people much more experienced than me like. You also need a quality release agent to put on the metal parts so they don't get glued into place. I use Kiwi neutral colored shoe polish and it has worked well on every rifle I have done.

After you pick an epoxy the basic idea of glass bedding (bedding with epoxy) is to make a perfect mold for the receiver to sit in. Some rifles with laminate stocks or even more so quality synthetic stocks only need to have a thin layer of epoxy applied to get this glove fit. These stocks are already naturally stiff and either unaffected or only slightly effected by environment changes and as such don't warp. A regular wood stock will warp as temperature and humidity change. Since the epoxy is very stiff it can stop this from happening but you need a thicker layer to have enough strength. As such, where ever you plan on using epoxy that will touch the receiver you will want to remove at least 1/8" of wood to give a nice thick epoxy bed.

On cheap synthetic stocks (the VAST majority) the synthetic material is flimsy. Some are weak enough they bow when the rifle is rested on them while others feel solid but flex during recoil. In a rimfire flex during recoil is much less important than in a heavy hitter centerfire. A quality synthetic stock will cost you as much as a really nice wood stock would so it is a bit of personal preference. A cheap synthetic stock normally benefits from having some sort of reinforcement such as steel rods or arrow shafts glued into the inside of the stock. This will give you the rigidity of a quality stock which from there can be bedded without having to take much if any material off of the stock before bedding. So while it is possible it is a bit more effort to bed a cheap synthetic stock. Even high end stocks should be bedded with epoxy. Even the stocks that come with metal bedding blocks need to be bedded. No two rifles are exactly the same and a coat of epoxy will make the stock fit to the action perfectly.

As for the exact steps there are tons of quality directions on this site and many others. I would google it and see what all you came up with. I know this site, savageshooters.com and 6mmbr.com have GREAT descriptions on how to bed a rifle with far better detail than I could ever get.

Free floating a barrel is important in any stock. You want to do it in both synthetic and wood stocks. Any pressure that can vary (such as stock to barrel as the barrel heats up/cools down) is bad. The barrel doesn't care if it is rubbing on synthetic material or wood, it will be bad either way. Free floating a synthetic stock is a little different though you are doing the same thing. A lot of synthetic stocks only have cross ribs that will touch the barrel instead of the entire channel. As such you only have to remove a smaller area to get the entire channel to be floated. The problem is a lot of stocks gum up sand paper in a hurry. I use a dremel with a sanding disk and set it to low speed. I try to go very slow as synthetics will often melt if done too fast which makes a big mess and a lot of work to get clean. So while it for me uses different tools it results in the same thing as floating a wood stock.

Great imformation Benzy. Thanks alot.

 

[shaneman153d]

Thanks Benzy, good info, just one more question; What about those who bed the barrel all the way out to the tip of the stock? I guess the concept is to merge the mass of the barrel and stock, so harmonics don't effect it as much? I've seen this done on wood stocks, and have wondered why warping would not be an issue? Or would it?

 

[shaneman153d]

I meant to reply to you earlier Whiffleball. I totally agree with you, but at the same time I encourage people with mechanical aptitude to try the safe, easy mods themselves. If you have no experience doing trigger jobs, don't start out with grinding away at your parts!!!

You can reduce creep / make it smooth safely on any trigger by using a dremel and a polishing kit. Find the engaging surfaces, and use the gray "rubber" like bit at a moderate speed. This will take off any finish and polish it very well, without taking any material off. If the surface is slightly pitted (pot metal), then you can use the buffer wheel with the polish included in the kit. Remember, this is an abrasive type polish, so run it on a slow speed and be prepared to do a little bit at a time, reassemble and check it.

I have done 5 or six of my guns this way and this "trigger job" really makes for a smooth pull. If you're feeling froggy, then you can try stoning it, make it 2-stage, etc. Just have the replacement parts ready just in case.

There are hundreds of sites, forums, etc. that list easy mods you can do to firearms. Before you begin anything, make sure you understand each step, and understand what you are doing mechanically. If you can't see the logic in a certain way some online-WECSOG-gunsmith is expaining something, don't jump in. And last and most importantly, know how to do a functions check on your gun and do it. It has saved my cookies numerous times.

 

[benzy2]

Thanks Benzy, good info, just one more question; What about those who bed the barrel all the way out to the tip of the stock? I guess the concept is to merge the mass of the barrel and stock, so harmonics don't effect it as much? I've seen this done on wood stocks, and have wondered why warping would not be an issue? Or would it?

People bed the entire barrel as there are many who find it to be very accurate. I believe the idea is that if the stock fits the barrel perfectly at all points then it will dampen vibrations and give good accuracy. The problem with this is that if the stock isn't bedded perfectly the entire length as the barrel heats up it will put more or less pressure on the uneven bedding. The old theory I had heard was that bedding the entire length of the barrel was likely to give better accuracy results if, and this is a HUGE IF, the bedding was done perfect. If it is a bit flawed you can see the same results as the barrel touching the stock from the factory with point of impact moving around as the barrel heats and cools. For most of us it is much easier to just bed the action and float the barrel as removing material from the stock is a lot easier than getting a perfect fit over that much area.

 

[shaneman153d]

Thanks benzy, I guess the benefit doesn't really outweigh the cost, sounds much easier to float 'er.