So basically 180° opposing forces, with the barrel pushing down on the bedding.

I was considering my options for my No 4 Maltby rifle.

I am considering 3 points of contact, at 120°  between. So two in the lower fore end and one in the middle of the upper.

The idea is to control any sideways flex as well as the vertical.

If you put a steel bar in a lathe, or a drill bit in a drill, it is always held concentric by the 3 jaws.

So I was considering trying this in my project rifle.

( I still have not tested the rifle since purchasing, due to the range being closed)

Anyway, has this method it been tried before?

Any comments welcome!

From what I can tell, the fore-end barrel bedding was an attempt to dampen, or reduce, the amount of vertical deflection of the barrel under the very rapid impulse load of firing the cartridge. Movement at the muzzle is thought to be mostly in the vertical plane. But, there must be some lateral restraint of the barreled action within the fore-end too, otherwise it could easily move sideways within the fore-end as the bullet travels down the barrel and that cannot be good. 

Where the barrel bearing is located within the fore-end is likely going to affect how the last few inches of the muzzle behaves just as the bullet is exiting the barrel. I believe that is the key to repeatable accuracy and the whole point of “tuning” the load to the rifle.  But all those barrel bedding experiments done in the 1950’s thru 1970’s were tuning the rifle to the load in the case of competitive service rifle shooting with issue Mk 7 ammunition (and later, 7.62 NATO ball ammunition in the No. 4 Conversions).  So, we now are playing with two variables at the same time, barrel bearing/bedding and the load. 

I think the packing of the hand guards were an attempt to create a “node” in the sense of barrel vibratory response, this is a point along the barrel where there is no (or little) vertical displacement.  That does not occur in the first mode of bending (simple cantilever) but does occur in higher order modes.  I don’t know how successful it was, after all, the fore-end is made of wood and it’s certainly not rigid either!  

One thing I do know, that’s the mind of a competitive shooter. They don’t do anything to a rifle that costs them points!  Some will scoff at the very idea of messing about with the fore-end bedding method set out by the engineers at Enfield.  And I don’t dismiss that thought entirely, as it did result in a high standard of accuracy for a service rifle with a fairly light barrel.  But, what other reason was there for such a following of the bedding techniques developed for SR(b) shooting if not to improve their scores? 

It would be an interesting experiment.  

I was brought up to believe that the original factory, (bottom center near the breech & bottom center at the tip of the muzzle end) were fine if they worked with that rifle. 

If there was a "bedding issue" then that was fixed first. If that failed to rectify the problem then barrel packing or center bedding were additional work used to fix something that wasn't "right" even when correctly bedded.

Now all these were from the bottom, except "packing" which wrapped round the barrel clamping it between the forend & the handguards at the forwards slings swivel band.

As has been mentioned this was all done with "Issue MkVII ball" ammo.

Its not major surgery & easily reversible to try middle bedding from the top, the bottom & all round & see if there's an improvement with YOUR load of ammo.

I've become a fan of the little 6 1/4" X 1 1/2" X 0.014" card dividers between rows of tea bag recently 

They just beg to be cut to length, oiled & slipped into places to make modifications.

I’d bet money that the Queen’s Prize winners in SR(b) in the ‘50’s thru late ‘60’s all had center or mid-band bedded rifles.  The bedding method is described in E.G.B. Reynolds & Robin Fulton’s book, Target Rifle Shooting. 

Absolutely.

My "new project" is going to be the "Goobermint model sporter" No5 Mk 1.

I'm not doing any more work on the no4 Mk2 loads til I get a sustainable load of 4895.

I'm tired of constantly switching a powder based on availability & re-doing load development for the umpteenth time.

I have lots of ammo for that & its bore has  "seen" Cordite & corrosive!

It's an interesting book, but the No4 is a different barrel. So I think there's room for some experiment.

We don't have the same reliable source of powders, so I have often switched brands because of no stock of what I had loaded. The problem being we are restricted in the amount of powder we can buy and store.

2 kg maximum! So it doesn't make for a reliable stock.

I'm going to test the idea using thin wooden strips, which are actually coffee stirring sticks! 

About 6mm wide and 1 mm thick 120 mm long. So easily modified, and a good supply.

I have made up an oak shim for the Knox form, because the original fit here is not ideal.

As for powders, I’ve loaded 3031, 4064, 4895, 4350, Re 15, Norma 202, N135, N140 and Varget.  

My first hand loads for the .303 were with IMR 3031 and pulled Mk 7 bullets, groups were fairly poor, typically 2” x 4” at 100 yards.  I then loaded the 174 gr SMK with the same 3031 load and groups shrunk in half to 1” x 2”.  IMR 4064 shot even better, 1 to 1.5 MOA, as did Re 15 and Varget. 

For grins, I’m going to re-test 3031 and 4350 again, to see if there is any trend with powder burn rate.  Those tests I did 25 years ago were all at 100 yds and I was not looking for how groups were compensating for muzzle velocity variation, I did not have chrono data to determine ES and SD.  The Garmin XERO changes all of that. 

Endless combinations here…glad I have a few spare barrels. 

The coffee stirrers narrow lollipop sticks are great for that! I've used them to pack the draws in the No5 as they were cut too shallow. They've been in there for a while & had a couple of hundred rounds through them They show some slight compression, which is what I was looking for as it ndicated a firm contact in the draws area. but are absolutely solid & remain in place very well.

The Goobermint Model Sporter is free of its forend & I'm soaking some strips of the teabag card dividers (9 thou thick) for my latest "clever" idea.

I find that if I remove the aftermarket forend the double action trigger returns. It was running as single stage. The humps seem unmodified. I'm guessing the stock is a little too "thick" in this area, changing the geometry between the sear bottom & trigger top.

Once I get that sorted, I'll see if I need a "pad" at the tip of the short forend. The barrel was free-floating before but its really easy to slip a card in there to test with & without at the range.