Fitch, I taper bore within .003-004 of finish, leaving the reamer's job to do nothing more than produce the final shape and finish in the chamber. That allows the reamer to be inserted a tad past 1/2 way.
Also, it is very criticle to get the barrels ID running truly straight with the lathe's axis regardless of which method you use. If you use a floater, and the barrel is not running dead true, the reamer will start to wobble as it encounters spots in the ID that are not true. So, what does this hurt? The subsequent machining operations will not be true with the chamber.
Of course, if you do not use a floater, the chamber will in all likely hood be oversize, as the reamer will bind, and cut oversize, depending on how much clearance the pilot has in the bore.
When truing the barrel, you either have to get two predetermined spots at the chamber end running dead true, (Gordy Method), and ream, or true the muzzle and a predetermined spot, (the throat), running dead true, and then single point bore a third spot dead true with these two spots.
All of this while avoiding any stacked tolerances that can crop up in any set-up when attempting to machine a certain fit truly staright with an imperfect section.
As you said, opinions will vary.......jackie
friggin' awesome post
al