Have you ever read an article in which the writer indicated with great authority that to achieve the best performance the barrel of a particular rifle should have a specific number of pounds of upward pressure on it? For years when I would read something like that I was absolutely mystified as to how the heck you could set upward pressure on a barrel. I fully appreciated the fact that some guns do tend to shoot best with a bit of upward pressure on the barrel, but how you could get a precise amount of pressure was beyond me. Until an old friend showed me a trick with a water bucket.

Common business cards can be used to initially determine if your rifle will benefit from upward forearm pressure on the barrel.

But before I get into that, let's take a look at how we determine if a gun would benefit from upward pressure, and most importantly, just what is this "upward pressure" and how is it created?

For quite a few years it has been widely promoted and accepted that a rifle will tend to shoot best if the barrel is free-floated. Free-floating simply indicates that the barrel has no contact with the forearm beyond the receiver or perhaps the first two inches or so of the barrel chamber area ahead of the front of the receiver. Beyond that point there is a gap between the barrel and the stock. You could take a piece of paper, fold it around the barrel, and slide it back to the receiver or chamber area. There would be a clearance between the barrel and the forearm.

The idea behind this is that as a gun is fired, the barrel will move about; it will vibrate or move in a specific pattern. By allowing this free movement to take place the muzzle of the barrel will always be in the same place or position at the moment the bullet exits the bore. That in turn means that the bullet has a much greater chance of hitting the same spot on the target downrange. If the barrel were in five different positions for five different shots, then you would have hits at five different points on the target. Consistency of barrel position at the moment the bullet leaves the bore is critical for accuracy.

If upward pressure is needed, the barreled action is removed, the location of a pressure pad is marked, and a Dremel tool is used to remove wood for the base of the pressure pad.

An added advantage of free-floating a barrel in a wood stock is that the barrel is not influenced by the movement of the stock as it swells or twists as it absorbs or loses moisture or is bent by sling pressure.

Most gunsmiths generally agree that free-floating a barrel is a darn good idea. When working with a rifle to get it to shoot its best, I will start off by glass bedding the action and free-floating the barrel. I then head for the range and do some very serious testing. More often than not, the rifle does quite well, and that's the end of the story.