Looking for gunsmith to fit barrel in wood stock

Hurricane · May 8, 2014

I have a mark V weatherby that the barrel touches the wood in a few places and needs to be cleaned up, I am in the salem, Woodburn area and don't know of anyone. If you can help me I would appreciate it. Thanks!

The Cheese · May 8, 2014

If you feel brave you can DIY it. get a tube (PVC pipe or a wooden dowel) and wrap some 80grit sandpaper around it, the self adhesive stuff works pretty good for this. The tube needs to be about the same diameter as the channel's narrowest part. Then just work it front to back until you have removed enough material to clear a dollar bill or a thicker piece of paper between the barrel and the stock. Then use progressively finer grits of sand paper until the wood is as smooth as you would like. To finish the wood, I just use Fromby's tung oil that you can get at Fred Meyer's or there is one that Brownells sells that is good as well. I will usually put down like 5 coats (takes about 5days, 1 day for each coat to dry). Then you have a fully free floated barrel.

Hurricane · May 8, 2014

Sounds easy enough but I don't want the barrel free floated, the front of the barrel is supposed to touch at the front according to weatherby. I'm just scared that I'll mess it up. I suppose I could do it and just be gentle with it, little at a time. Thank you for the advise, I really appreciate it!!

NWCustomFirearms · May 8, 2014

If you're up in the Portland Vancouver area try NW Custom Firearms. I saw a Rem 700 they inletted and looked great.

You can also diy, buy a barrel channel scraper from Brownells and some Prussian blue. "paint" the underside of the barrel and scrape away the blue marks on the stock. Repaint and repeat and a couple hours later you'll have the perfect fit.

The Cheese · May 9, 2014

Hurricane said:
Sounds easy enough but I don't want the barrel free floated, the front of the barrel is supposed to touch at the front according to weatherby. I'm just scared that I'll mess it up. I suppose I could do it and just be gentle with it, little at a time. Thank you for the advise, I really appreciate it!!

If the MFG says that the barrel is supposed to touch at the end of the stock, why are you worrying about it touching elsewhere? Seems kind of backwards to me. The only reason they want the barrel touching the wood is that the stock is probably flexy and even if you did inlet it out a bit to free float it, it would probably still flex and contact the barrel. Either way the gun won't be able to get to its best accuracy IMO. I would say either Free float the barrel along the whole length or just leave it a long.

If you do want to DIY it, go slow, use 2-3layers of painters tap in the areas that you don't want sanded and take your time. Its not hard and if you are patient its a pretty easy process. If you can sand wood to paint/stain it, you can do this. Far from Rocket Surgery.