If I replaced it with a wood stock from Boyds, I'm wondering if it'd need to be bedded to maintain factory accuracy? And are they free floated?
I have several Boyd's stocks floating around here, I don't specifically recall if the barrel touched the channel on this Boyd's stock, but it probably did.
I did bed the action and I would have ensured that I had proper clearance around the barrel, because I believe that free floated barrels shoot more consistently than barrels with pressure points. I do recall purchasing aftermarket stocks, so called "drop in stocks", that I had to bed the action and relieve the stock channel to keep it from bearing on the barrel. Even factory stocks are very deficient in this regard. The Remington's I own, there is some pressure point at the tip, which I remove, and then, I still have to remove wood in the barrel channel to prevent the stock from touching the barrel.
Having target rifles in wood stocks and composite stocks, I am going to say accuracy does not depend on the material. This wood stocked Cloward is just as inherently accurate as the fiberglass stock, but both have been bedded, the actions are floating in a very thick layer of devcon epoxy, and the barrel is well away from the barrel channel. And, both stocks are very stiff. That is important.
In terms of hunting rifles, I am of the opinion that laminated wood stocks are more dimension ally stable and stiff than a standard wood stock. This is one reason I bedded the Rem 700 in a laminated stock, I want a stiffer stock. I have shot thousands, if not tens of thousands of rounds in old military bolt rifles and I have seen how point of impact changes as position changes, (standing, prone, sitting) based on how you hold/twist a military stock. I don't know how stiff the plastic stock you are interesting in, but, if it is bendy, I don't care what material it is made out of, bendy is bad. And, whether factory drop in, or aftermarket, I would say, you will need to bed the action to the stock for best accuracy and consistency. I have a 308 factory Ruger, in a laminated stock, and the bedding was horrible. The action just slide in the stock and I could see the horizontal dispersion on paper.
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I’m going to eventually bed my 03A3 in it’s Boyds stock....one of these days
Recently I bedded my faux Remington M1903 in its Boyd's stock. It is faux because nothing on the thing, was there, when the original rifle was built in 1942. It does have a new Rem 03 bolt, barrel, pitted Remington trigger guard. I took it down to CMP Talladega and it would just about hold the ten ring (7 inches) at 200 yards.
I did not post the 300 yard target, because, it would hold the black, but I shot a seven. And three 8's.
I decided to bed the thing to see if that improved things. I am sure it improved the receiver to stock fit. When I shot it this month, it was bright and the front sight washed out, so, I am unable to show one way or another whether bedding the thing actually improved group size. It did on every 03A3 that I bedded, but these were GI stocks. And then, you hit the barrel limit. While everyone except me seems to own a sub MOA M1903 or M1903A3, the factory specs were above 2 inches, and war time barrels, well, they did not expect you to live long enough to become a great shot. With 5000 causalities a week, typical in a big war, infantry got used up. Two veterans I knew, my Uncle got a total of eight rounds of familiarization before parachute dropping over Normandy, a gun club bud, he got 20, before landing second wave on Iwo Jima. He said, he was given a M1 Carbine before getting on the ship, he had to sight the thing in during combat! He fired two carbines, ten shots each, during familiarization sessions. He and his buds went to the range twice, shot 10 rounds per session at 200 yards. Bud said one carbine would hit the bottom of the target if aimed at the middle. He was given a new carbine for each familiarization session. He shot a round, observed the shot placement, walked over to the Armorer's for a sight adjustment. At the end of ten rounds the carbine was more or less sighted in. Then, as the group moved on to the next activity, the carbine he just sighted in was taken away. He was issued a carbine prior to boarding the troop ship, when he finally deployed in a combat zone. Bud never had a chance to function test or sight the carbine prior to combat. During combat, he had a buddy spot for him, while he fired at something, and using the feed back from his buddy, he adjusted the rear sight by knocking it over with the butt of this knife:
He used this knife to stab a Japanese infantry man during a wild Bonsai charge. Bud claimed that of the 25 men in his communication unit, only two survived, the wind talker was one of those who did not make it.
Those who expect target accuracy from service rifles ought to contemplate the experience of those who actually experienced war. Bud called himself and all the others, "cannon fodder". No one cares one way or another whether the troops can shoot straight, whether their sidearms are accurate, whether the sidearms are reliable, as such issues are in the noise level.
The greatest problem I have with original GI stocks is that the rear tang of the 03 receiver compresses the wood of the stock and the receiver tilts up. I have yet to run across an original, used, GI stock, that did not need the tang bedded because the wood had compressed.
