My .223 Survivor synthetic has been mounted with a 3x9 Tacso,bore sighted and now range sighted in @100 yards with good results. If I remove the foreend and "float it" with an O-ring, will that de-accurize the gun/scope and defeat the efforts to date? What does O-ringing accomplish and how? Why "tweak" it to death?

Why mess with it if it's shooting good?? If it ain't broke, don't fix it!! The O-ring will semi-float the forend and might help if you were having accuracy problems, but if not, don't worry about it. Some rifles respond well to fully bedding the forend, just depends, what works on one rifle may not work on another. The O-ring is just one option.

Friends All.....Dixie Slugs bought NEF 20 ga rifled guns, regular and "Gas-Pipe" Ultras as test guns for our 20 bore loads. We then added more barrels to "play" with. We noted at once that the NEF's had some of the same quirks that other single shots had........they don't like having their forearms resting on a hard bag. The small barrels like the lightweight .22 Hornet likes certain powders better than others (barrel harmonics), etc. One thing we noticed the NEF's disliked, as does Ruger #1 and #3,.......is they don't like the forearm tight back against the front of the frame! As the barrel heats up and expands......this tight spot causes a change in the barrel harmonics......usually causing vertical groups. We found by bringing about a few thousanths clearance between the forearm and front of the frame, is problem stoped. It also goes without saying.....the trigger needs work and the hammer fall is too hard. After cleaning up these problems, we found the NEF's to shoot right in with the more expensive guns......sometimes better!........James

I have found my Handis shoot better with the forearm floated, but I don't use an O ring. I didn't like the inconsistent tension the rubber would allow, so I use a type of flat washer between the forearm and the forearm screw lug. I have also been known to use 12 gauge forearms with smaller rifle barrels, like the .22 Hornet 20" SL barrel. Usually, if you can pass a Dallas phone book between the barrel and the forearm, that's just right! :D

Paul,

I've experimented a bit with using a .004" shim tween the spacer and forend on the wood stocks, sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't, seems there's a happy medium tween tight and loose. Mac and I have used RTV silicone for bedding, it seems to work very well, is cheap and removable if it doesn't help!! Seems to me it was either You or Donaldo that came up with the idea, but it does work well on those that we've done so far. Mac has a writeup on it at GBO. A bunch at AR are trying it too on their Encores and even bolt guns!!

Tim