Got a birch stock for my springfield scout from Fred's. Nice tiger striping and what not but come to find out it opened my groups up from the standard walnut from Boyd's that springfields ship with. I was getting 2-3 MOA now I'm vertically stringing 3-5 MOA.

Upon further inspection and research thanks to tonyben3 on youtube and various other m14 forums, I was able to see that I have very little draw pressure on the front band and some slop in my lockup with the receiver and stock now (receiver/action moves laterally about 1/32" in the stock). I took the stock liner out of another G.I. walnut stock and compared it to the one in the birch stock and they were slightly different in dimension which cut the lateral movement by about half. Upon reading up on trigger group draw pressure I added some duct tape to the bottom of the heel of the receiver and where the receiver contacts the stock just above the magazine(2 strips thickness), cutting out the lateral movement completely. I also added some duct tape to the front ferrule to give some draw pressure there (3 strips), though I am still getting contact with top hand guard but so did the original stock. I have not had a chance to fire with these changes, which will probably tell me a lot more about this little experiment than anything.

Until I can get it bedded, which is the best solution to this problem, is there anything else anybody here has done to solve these bedding problems? Don't tell me to get a new stock. Not going to happen.

I have avoided bedding because I think it is a real PITA.
I have used Teflon tape at the front ferrule before.

The vertical stringing can be from the bottom edge of the handguard contacting the stock. You need a good 1/8" gap from the front ferrule back. Remove the handguard and use sandpaper on a flat surface to give the clearance needed. The strips above the magazine will help. The strips on the ferrule will shred after a few rounds though.

Yep.

I don't even use a front band on my M14s, but I do make sure the hand guard is not contacting the stock.

I have an SAI that I swear has the barrel ever so slightly canted downwards.  As a result, no stock gives good tension at the front ferrule to front band interface.  What I have done on fiberglass stocks is to remove the front ferrule and modify the stock so that the ferrule can be lowered when reinstalled.  I epoxy a fresh ferrule in its new place and now have good tension and tight lockup.

Thanks for all the input. I took it to the range today and the vertical stringing is gone. Still shooting 3-5 MOA. As far as the rifle is concerned its probably just going to have to be bedded in the future.

As much as it hurts my pride it may just be my marksmanship. I haven't had near the amount of time for practice as I used to.

Anybody have any links to read up more on the hand guard contacting the stock?

Do you know anyone that has a Lead Sled that you could borrow? Will take 95% of the human element out of the equation

Yeah I do. That's going to be the next thing I do. I'm pretty confident that my lack of practice accounts for my groups opening up to some degree.

Aging eyeballs can do it too.  My iron sight vision isn't as good as it used to be. Some days are worse than others and the is some estimation of the front sight tip placement.

For the rifle mentioned above withe the downward pointing barrel a quick semi permanent fix that I would. Insider is brazing some material in the front ferrule and filing it to fit.   Essentially thickening the tab there.  Hardly a perfect fix short of a bedding job but it should work. You'd also have to go back down the line and check your handguard clearance with your non standard rifle.

Not quite there on the aging eyeballs. I'm 25 and had 20/20 at my last eye checkup.  Although the reason I had to get the eye check was due to an out of battery discharge on a Walther ppk. Received fragments to the whites of my eyes luckily didn't get anything in the important parts.

Ouch.  Glad you're still among the sighted. I've had eyeball surgery due to objects before.  It sucks a lot.   Itched like hell and you couldn't rub it

You don’t want the handguard contacting the stock or the receiver at the back of the HG.
I don’t know offhand what the NM spec is for the clearance.
You also don’t want the inside front of the stock or ferrule contacting the gas cylinder when firing.
There is a NM spec for modifying the ferrule.
Doing these things and some of the other NM mods improved the group size of my standard M1A considerably without bedding.

Yeah got pretty damn lucky. Took shrapnel to the lung as well collapsed the lung and temporarily blinded my right eye. Had to drive myself to town where my ol lady was working in the ER. If Obama doesn't take my gun rights away she will one day haha

I'll have to look into those specs this has been pretty dam interesting.

Get rid of the dam duct tape EVERYWHERE you put it. Get a magnet card off of the refrigerator and cut little strips of it to put on the trigger housing pads where they contract the stock( you will see the little indents on the bottom of the stock). Put equal numbers of strips on both sides. The duct tape under the receiver heel is pushing the receiver up, giving you less draw pressure on the front ferrule. You need to bring the heel down onto the stock which is what the magnetic strips on just the trigger housing pads will do.

Google it.

This, but I used roofing tin from a hardware store.  You can also cut up a pop can into strips.  Add enough strips to get good pressure locking the trigger group in.

Yeah that makes more sense. Thanks I'll give it a shot!

I had a similar M14 (n.e. M1A) problem with my SA.

I faced either a full bedding job, or something--but what. After some thought, I made up a set of brass shims and placed them towards the front of the receiver, angled so that they correctly reflected the angles on the stock and receiver at those points. The 1/32 brass was a bit thicker than needed, so I used a long flat file (who's names getd *****ed on internet forums) and thinned the shims for excellent contact on the stock and just the right nose tension on the ferrule. After completion, I rubber cemented them onto the stock to prevent movement.

With my grigger group, there is quite good trigger lockup. This help my gun shoot significantly better groups.

Took the scout out yesterday after work. I removed the duct tape from the receiver but left it under the front ferule. I am now using magnet strips on the trigger pads which removed all the play in the lockup there. Rigged it up in a lead sled and shot slightly over .75" at 50 yards with '13 production CBC M80. Took it out and went prone and shot at 100 yards. Now I am getting just under 3" at 100 with irons at dusk, which is good enough for me and my ability I could probably do a little better under regular light conditions.

Thanks for the help fellers. Looks like the gun is now more precise than I am accurate, which is all I can ask for. I suppose one of these days I could sand the hand guard to clear the stock but until my ability catches up I'm not going to worry about it.