In the past, I have seen where short range smiths would angle the barreled action up a little at the front relative to the top of the forend. I think that the idea was to keep the butts of marginally balanced LVs and Sporters from popping out of rear bag ears. I am somewhat of a maverick on how this may work, believing that what is really taking place is reducing the up angle that has been seen on some forends in their bag tracking area. Recently I have done a stock modification that seems to confirm this conclusion. The other issue that can come up for short range BR is that a stock that is right at the butt angle minimum may be made illegal in that respect by angling up the barreled action, which reduces the butt angle relative to the CL of the bore, which is how rule books specify it be measured. Years ago I asked Bill Shehane why his forends had a very slight up angle. He told me that without it rifles tended to show more vertical in their grouping. IMO this angle is very much a matter of a little being good and more being a potential problem, because what happens when a gun fires is different than when the rifle is simply slid by hand in the bags. The experiment that I referred to was on a rifle based on a stock that I have had poping out issues with from time to time, particularly on a range that is slightly downhill. I cut the forend angle by half and extended it and it is a whole new rifle.
