I had my Remington model 700 30.06 floated and glass bedded the other day. First of all, my question. What exactly do they do to the gun and what results are you supposed to see? Next, my comment. I have enjoyed shooting it since I got it back. I put a box of shells though it this weekend. It was as smooth as a rabbits tail. Thanks in advance

With a wood stock, the wood can swell and make contact with the barrel. This will affect accuracy. What they do is remove the barrel from the stock, sand away a little of the wood (float) where the barrel lays, and then use fiberglass (glass) the exposed bed area to prevent moisture changes to the now unexposed wood. Pretty simple, you can even do it yourself. The result is that the wood no longer is exposed, will no longer expand, will no longer make contact with the barrel, will help shot consistency.

Some of the 700 have a little wood peak at the end of the fore end that touches the barrel. It will leave a bright spot on the barrel. Sometimes removal of this is all that needed.

Like bigbill sez the small wood pressure point in the front end of the barrel channel may be all that is necessary to remove...and can be done at home using a wooden dowel wrapped with heavy grit sand paper. If this is all you are doing be sure to paint the barrel channel with a good weatherproof sealer afterwards. I have used a TruOil exterior stock finish that is cut 50/50 with linseed oil and do 2-3 thin coats. Let it dry for at least 24 hours in a water heater closet or some other super low humidity environment. It should be slick and almost brittle to the touch.
As far as paying someone to float and glassbed a rifle there should be a little more to it than has been mentioned IMO.
Acompetent gunsmith will remove the barreled action from the stock and inspect it for shiny spots where the gun manufacturer did not relieve the wood enough and it rubbing and binding on the receiver or barrel or both. It is that binding that causes uneven torque or twisting problems that result in poor accuracy.
So the gunsmith will ID the problem areas, releive and open up the stress points, fill the reciever cavity with bedding glass so that the glass completely fills every nook and cranny forming a super tight non binding fit between the stock and the metal work that is only the thickness of the release agent painted on the metal work.
Any material being removed in the barrel channel should result in a gap the length of the barrel from the recoil lug/front of the receiver to the muzzle of no thicker than a doubled dollar bill. Again the inside of the barrel channel should simply be painted with a sealer to weather proof the raw wood and not glassed anywhere unless there are some mfg'ing tool gouges that need to be filled in or to reinforce some poor inleting around the recoil lug. I would expect to pay around $100-$125 for a complete glass bed and float job and yes sometimes it will make a world of difference in the way a gun shoots...if there are no other problems. But correct bedding and a floated barrel is the place to start as it just like the base plate connection between a house's slab foundation and the load bearing stud walls...if they ain't straight and even the roof will never be right and the walls will crack with age and soil shifts.
Ron

I've got a gun that is "glass bedded" and it is fine. On my other guns I shimmed the barrel lug with identical results. It ain't as much fun to talk about, but it works. On a Remmy, remove that little "peak" on the fore-end and then use some hard platic shims under the lug, usually no more that two credit card thicknesses, to raise the barrel out of the stock. After that you can play with the tension on the barrel lug a tang screws to really tune it in. I have several rifles that are done this way that will shoot ragged little one hole groups...and it can be done by just about anyone for cheap. The other side of this coin is to shim the barrel in such a way that the pressure is the same all the time...you can shim the fore-end...or anywhere along the barrel that works. Like I said...it may not be pretty but it works. If you get good results with either of these techniques and you are of a mind to, you can take the gun to a smith and using glass bedding and floating make them more permanent. Both of these techniques are tinkerer's methods, but at the very least they can show you where a problem is.

My post was just a brief explanation of what is done. Of course it can be more complicated if something else is found. There are a number of other problems that can be identified by having an experienced smith do the job for you. One way to tell if your gun needs “floated”… single wrap a dollar bill around the fore end of the barrel and slide it towards the action. After getting to the stock area… if the dollar hangs up anywhere before it gets close to the chamber you have an obstruction that “could” affect your accuracy. Again, this is only a test method I was taught.

The reason I say “could” is because it hasn’t been shown to cause problems for every rifle, synthetic stocks for instance. My suggestion for what it’s worth is to use the dollar method, shave or shim the area yourself. If it works better than before take it to a smith and have the modifications professionally installed.

There are a lot of yahoo's out there that know a great deal more about it than me... but the best advice I've heard it take it to a smith... one that you know.

Donnie, I had talked to a few folks about what it would do, and liked what I heard. I just figured I'd bring it to the forum for discussion since I hadn't seen anything on here about it in my search. Figured some other folds might want to hear the info, too.

When you float and glass bed a rifle you are just isolating the action from the stock. Sometimes this helps...I've seen times when it didn't. It's all about barrel harmonics and getting the same good vibes every time, no matter the weather. I truly dig it...lol

The only rifles that I own that are not bedded and floated are the lever actions.I like to see the little clover leafs that they shoot.

Back in the '80s I liked to see orange stars and blue diamonds when I was riflin....no...wait...that was Lucky Charms. It WAS little clover leafs. But those leprechauns...man...they like totally creeped me out, Dude....

Not to get off topic (hearts, moons, stars, clovers... silly rabbits), but I was lead to believe that the synthetic stocks did not require float/bed, because they didn't react to environmental changes. Anyone else here that... comments?

The purpose of glass bedding is to relieve stress points and properly seat the receiver in the stock by filling in all of the gaps and voids around the receiver 100% to get a "100% form fit in the hole"...wood, synthtic or laminate makes no difference for stock material. Glass bedding will also reinforce a stock and help to keep it from flexing when the stock is not inherently strong enough for the caliber of the rifle.
I had an early Weatherby Fibermark 300Wby that the stock was so flimsy thru the receiver area are it bowed under recoil and wore a shiney spot about the size of my thumbnail under the barrel where the fore end ended. The recoil lug was also not seated correctly or completely and had a shiney spot on the face of it about half way down as thats all that was touching and again was moving loose in the lug channel of the stock under recoil. Needless to say the gun would not shoot straight ...it held good groups left and right under 3/4"s but because of the constant motion and random pressure response under the barrel it would shoot very erractically up and down with a 3-4" spread from shot to shot. Professional glass bedding and pillar mounted action screws cured the problem.
Pillar screws are where the stock has been relieved enough around the action screws to insert aluminum "pillars that allow the action screws to pass thru them. The pillars are glued to the stock and act as a spacer between the bottom of the reciever and the surface of the bottom of the stock using oversized "washers" to provide more bearing surface to put tension on with the action screws...and a common trick of the trade on target rifles.
Ron