Accurizing the Super Part 1: The Stock

[zagumennyyilya 51]

Hello, i have had the super for some time now and am not entirely satisfied with the results it was giving me, I have already posted on this forum asking what it would take to bed the stock to the barreled action of the rifle, in my opinion the way the stock is contacting the barrel in the front is less than ideal.

The stock is held to the barrel right in front of the receiver and right at the gas block, so when the rifle rests on a sandbag, there is pressure at 2 points pushing upwards. I am not a big fan of that and wanted to bed that part of the rifle to the stock using epoxy or glass bed or what not. One thing that really turned me off from bedding the rifle to the stock was the chance of ruining the nice looking stock and once you do it there is no turning back, its permanent.

[zagumennyyilya 51]

I am a proponent of the KISS principle, keep it simple stupid, and the intensive bedding process was shelved. I was browsing some Mosin Nagant forums and i ran across some youtube videos of people accurizing the Mosin and there was an individual that brought my attention to the WWII Russian snipers who used cork to bed the long pencil thin barrel to the stock. The idea was that cork is a soft dense material that would compress and provide even pressure along the entire barrel, also because the cork is relatively dense, it would absorb some of the barrel vibrations and improve barrel harmonics so to speak. The other thing with cork is that it is a non permanent solution on the rifle. If it doesn't work, than remove it and forget it.

 

I promptly ran to the auto parts store and purchased some of this cork gasket making material and proceeded into action. I removed the stock form firearm and cut strips of cork to lay inside the stock and provide an even pressure for the barrel.

The stock is inletted for the barrel in two steps, forward is closer to the barrel and rear is lower, so the cork had be be in step format.

I made the cork in the front part with only two layers and for the rear part I used nine layers.

I then put the barreled action into the stock and tightened the screws down. With the rifled action laying in the stock, there was about 2 mm of space for the front screw to pull down the barrel and 2 mm of space for the rear screw, the 2 mm of space was eliminated as i tightened the screws one at a time a little at at time, as the cork compressed, the action seated into the stock and now there is even or relatively even pressure on the barrel between the two screws. I assembled the rifle and the next day i took the rifle to the range to see if there was any improvement.

 

BOY OH BOY! I did not expect the result that i got, but the accuracy improved and i got proof! if you check out the previous range report that i posted you will see that all the groups have a tape measure next to the group and the sizes are on average 3-5 inches. I was not satisfied with that result, This trip i got 2 inch groups on average, the ammo that i used was the sierra 168 grain hollow point boat tail match king bullet and that is what i used for both range tests. On the previous range report i also had some hornady 150 grain full metal jacket but I didn't have for this one, I had 10 rounds that i used to zero the scope and that was it.

As you can see, there is a definite improvement to the accuracy, the whiter paper is the older groups and the paper with the red dot is the newer groups, I will be posting complete results of that range trip shortly.

 

One final thing, the cork material for me was just a method of seeing if the rifle would actually perform better with even pressure on the barrel, now, keep in mind, with humidity and temperature changes, the cork may expand and contract thus causing a shift in point of impact. so if you are in a place that has varying temps and humidity, this may be a disaster for you. but for me, it proved that glass bedding may actually improve the performance of this rifle.

 

 

[Dracozny 11]

I am thinking based on a video I saw of a 10/22 bedding is that the entire length of the barrel does not need to be bedded but merely the part closest to the gas block. the area that is recessed in the stock on the first half is overkill. instead of cork or actual bedding compound maybe a type of rubber strip could be an alternative?

 

I noticed inside my stock there is a patch of fiberglass already bedded around the action. just curious if you noticed this in yours.

[zagumennyyilya 51]

yes i did, but i think the fiberglass is there merely to strengthen the wood, the wood is quite thin in that area. purhaps the rubber would work better, i havent tried it. I just went with what i read about the cork, I will do further testing to see how it plays out.

[Dracozny 11]

I think your right, there is quite a bit of day light between the action and the fiberglass.