Originally Posted by
Colorado Luckydog
Free floating the barrel is only going to help you after the rifle heats up. I like going to the range and shooting paper so I like mine bedded and free floated on some of my rifles.
When you are big game hunting, it's not going to help at all, unless you plan on hitting the animal with your 6th shot(or so) after you heated up your barrel.
It certainly does help on most wooden stocks. The wood shrinks or swells a bit and can change the pressure on the barrel and on the action screws. My experience is that it takes several days for a wooden stock to settle if I am traveling from the Washington, DC area to the Colorado high country. Even after the stock has settled the usual pressure point between the stock and the barrel changes and can make that carefully crafted load into something else.
If you hunt without traveling far it probably does not make too much difference unless you manage to get the stock soaking wet.
On most synthetic stocks there is enough flex to change the forearm pressure a little (sometimes a bunch) when shooting with a sling or bipod. In general free floating is an inexpensive improvement for bolt action rifles.