Free floated?

[MVF]

I was looking at an A-bolt the other day and found something that seemed pretty strange to me. Browning lists these as free floated barrels, but after looking at 2 Stainless Stalkers and 1 Medallion all three had heavy stock to barrel contact (couldn't pull the stock away from the barrel).

When I said something to the salesman, he tried to play it off with "Well, you can just clean that up with a little sanding"- but isn't that pretty far out of line for a "quality" rifle? They sure aren't cheap to have to do something like that.

Am I just new and this is normal?

 

[Outlaws]

Did you try slipping a dollar bill or two between the stock and barrel, or was this just a visual inspection?

 

[DMK]

Is the contact the whole length of the barrel, or just at the tip?

It's common to float the barrel in the stock's channel, but allow a few pounds of pressure at the tip of the stock to dampen vibration.

 

[rcmodel]

If it shoots like it should, and it probably will, who cares?


rcmodel

 

[MVF]

I could absolutely not slip anything between the barrel and the stock. I could also not see how far the contact extended- it looked very tight everywhere I could see.

I have looked at several other rifles that were free floated the whole length (passed a dollar bill).

rcmodel- good point, but I don't want to pay $895 to find out!