Rifle Balance
- Thread starter Target 58
- Start date
steve stanley
Well-known member
I want it to balance right about the front of the action
I'm a relatively new shooter, but I've never given much thought about balance. Can I assume this balance point would be advantageous for most long guns? I wouldn't think balance is very important when shooing from a bench with the muzzle and butt stock both being supported, no?
HenryBennett
New member
Proper BR rifle balance is generally where the rifle balances about an inch or two forward of the action. You can test this by placing your rifle on a narrow rest like a dowel rod. Many believe balance effects recoil management and, ultimately, accuracy.
In Benchrest the rifles are usually not supported at the muzzle but a few inchs back on the forend of the stock. This allows for the stock to recoil with out falling out of the front bag and will not interfere with barrel vibration.. If the weight of the gun is to far forward the rifle will have a tendency of have the butt stock bounce up on recoil which will give you low impact on the target and if butt stock is to heavy it will affect barrel rise on recoil which can create a high impact on target. If you hang on to the gun, balance will have less effect but can you hold on to the gun exactly the same for all 5 shots and not affect the point of impact?
Super important, especially shooting free recoil which most do.
Nothing worse than the butt of the gun being “ bouncy” in the rear bag, why the best stocks allow for weight back there.
A weight class rifle , often, will not allow perfect balance but you want as much weght back there without going over.
You also want somebody to watch the gun recoil to see if it comes straight back in the rear bag. I’ve seen guys that never realize that’s an issue until observed.
Nothing worse than the butt of the gun being “ bouncy” in the rear bag, why the best stocks allow for weight back there.
A weight class rifle , often, will not allow perfect balance but you want as much weght back there without going over.
You also want somebody to watch the gun recoil to see if it comes straight back in the rear bag. I’ve seen guys that never realize that’s an issue until observed.
steve stanley
Well-known member
Lead is what i use, you do not want loose weight. It needs to be fastened to the gun
Yeap, that makes sense
Tungsten Carbide. EBay has every size that you may need.
mwezell
Mike Ezell
I use 70/30 or 65/35 copper tungsten alloy rod that can be found on ebay. It's machinable and still almost as heavy as tungsten carbide. Not cheap but about 1.5x the weight of lead. It just works well. Lead shot and epoxy can be mixed on a budget but you won't get the same weight from it.
mwezell
Mike Ezell
I much prefer to attach the weight to the butt plate and being machinable is a big deal in this regard. I've seen stocks destroyed by a weight getting loose in the back end because it wasn't attached. Most of us don't have the ability to machine tungsten carbide. Copper/tungsten alloy is the way to go, imho. Perhaps that's what you are using or meant. It's also available on ebay. Neither is cheap but one is machinable while the other isn't. Both can work but I see no reason to give up machinability in this application. It can be for simply drilling and tapping a hole to attach it to the butt plate or to cut and fit to the available space in your stock, but nevertheless, being able to cut it is of value to me.
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I make my weight systems much like Mike Ezell describes. A piece of tubing (copper or aluminum) appropriate to the size of copper tungsten rod is used and a front cap made. The cap holds a rubber bumper. That tube assy gets epoxied into the stock. The weight bar is drilled and tapped 1/4-20 and a modified flat headed cap screw goes into the butt plate to hold the weight rod. When the butt plate and weight rod is installed, the rubber bumper gives a bit of compression so the weight is supported at each end. The weight bar is taped around the outside so it's supported by the inner portion of the weight tube. The two butt plate screws go into larger than normal threaded pillars. It's imperative (in my opinion) that the butt plate be bedded to the stock to help distribute the load. When you do a weight system like this, the weight is both pushed and pulled rearward when the gun fires.
Here's a few pics of various ones I've made both finished and during the process.
Good shootin'
-Al
Here's a few pics of various ones I've made both finished and during the process.
Good shootin'
-Al
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Al that's an elaborate set up. I don't have the equipment to do that, but since I'm shooting a rimfire with a Rotex stock I shouldn't have any problem with recoil. I drilled the hole in the stock to fit the weight rod for both depth and diameter. It fits so tight that I don't know if I could get it out if I wanted to.
mwezell
Mike Ezell
Hindsight is 20/20 but if you had used a machinable material, you could've tapped a hole in it to remove it with.
Al did a great job of explaining what I believe is an ideal weight system design..or very near it. I think it's ideal for several reasons, some less obvious reasons and some quite plain to see. That's not to say that you can't do it a different way, though. And yes, you're likely correct that you won't have enough recoil with a rf to cause damage. That said, this is the cf section and the answers given I think are very good ones, regardless rf or cf.
Al can give more details if he wants but I don't think his tooling is elaborate. It can be done with a simple jig, basic tools and careful planning.
A less obvious aspect is vibration. We can't totally stop vibration and probably wouldn't want to if we could but we can manage it. A lot of rf guys tune with action screw torque. What's really going on with that? If the bedding is good, aren't we just managing vibration with torque? Something I learned during vibration analysis testing is that EVERY joint in the system moves, even the joint at that perfectly bedded and torqued action in the stock.
I say all that to get to this...How repeatable and/or manageable is any tiny movement with muliple pieces of tungsten carbide in the butt of your stock? Will it still work? Yes, it'll likely work well enough that you may never see any advantage, one way over the other. But are you wondering at all about it now? Doing things a certain way is overkill in some cases and in others, not so much. Either way, if you have to wonder, I'd fix whatever it is that causes any doubt at all. Just sayin, we should worry about shooting, watching flags etc, rather than wondering if we knowingly left something pieced together less than ideally, and how that might or might not affect the gun.
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