Just finished an article in my favorite magazine "Precision Shooting" (highly recommend it to those infatuated with shooting tiny groups) about variations in group size as associated with placement of the rifle forepiece on the front rest. I believe the article is in the November issue. The author used two BM rifles, one carbine with conventional forened and the other looked like a 24" flat top with float tube. He found that the best groups were produced when both rifles were rested with the magazine well almost touching the front rest. The flat top with full floating barrel produced terrible results when the rifle was rested in the middle of the forend (the usual placement) and the standard forend carbine did not produce as drastic a change in group size when rested from the different bag positions. I was actually surprised how well the carbine grouped compared to the flat top (the one that should have produced better and MORE CONSISTENT GROUPS). My question to you fellow shooters is:

Have you also noticed this trait? Any comments about the findings of the author?

Karl

I haven't done extensive shooting like this, but putting the bags as close to the breech is what I would figure to be best.  Less torque on the bbl that way.

make that the October 2001 issue for those interested.

Karl

When doing load testing with my HP service rifle AR I remove the lower handguard and rest the float tube right on the sand bag as close to the mag well as possible. I may have read the same article, or similar one by someone else, and compared in close to further out on the float tube. Best results came with close in. YMMV.