CR500 said:
So, what is the benefit of the Flexibed over the standard solid bedding block, when using a heavy F open barrel
Rod,
If most of the bedding blocs were made of 7075, there would be a rise in charactareristics as compared to the most commonly used 6061......
You mention rubber for the flexibloc. The term is improper as there is no rubber as such, but polyurethane 85 Shore for the bearing strips, and the bushings are silent-blocs of the automotive type, of also higher characterisitcs as plain or even synthetic rubber bushings...
R.G.C
The same benefits with any barrel weight: screw torque values don't affect the accuracy of the unit, water, oil, other liquids will never affect the accuracy, there are no wearing parts.
By the last bit (the important bit), I mean that there is always a bit of movement in solid metal pieces directly mated like an action in a solid V block. Look at the bottom of any action bedded into a solid V block, it will have evidence of movement. This movement is very small, like 4 decimal places of inch, or hundreths of mm's, and is directly related to recoil vs the movement in the pieces held together. And less so things like differential expansion rates of the materials, say 7075 Aluminium and 4140 steel.
Unless the V block and the action held within are a PRESS fit, there will ALWAYS be movement. It is impossible to entirely negate the recoil impulse (that being a rear movement, along with a sinewave movement from barrel whip) from a simple pin, stud, block or lug, unless they are a press (read permanent) fit. This is where a lot of people make the mistake thinking that some simple system will give them something that goes against the laws of physics.
In a flexibloc, this movement is considerably more in magnitude from recoil, but it is entirely absorbed by the synthetic materials the barrelled action is sitting on/in, hence it then returning to the previous zero point. This system also has a very good damping ability, where the V block does nothing for damping.
The flexibloc system also uses pins attached to the action body to transfer recoil, rather than other, less able systems. These pins fit into rubber blocks in the alum block itself, so there are no metal to metal joins anywhere.
The heavier the barrel, the smaller the movements (higher the frequency) the barrel / action will have, especially if the action is a very stiff unit like the Barnard or CG INCH.
The other issue is the ultimate lack of lengthwise stiffness of the Alum/timber (typically) stock combination. Those readers that have machine tools, and some knowledge of how heavy machinery needs to be to make it at least "mostly" rigid, know that a puny piece of Alum say 1.5 inches deep and the same wide, set into a timber stock, is not going to be very stiff. Torque two screws at each end up, the whole thing will bow somewhere, even it if is only a few tenths....that is enough to make it not then follow the shape of the action. There is nothing to guarantee that the action body itself is perfectly round, or parallel - in fact I would say it is very unlikely. There is also the V block also having to be perfectly parallel, and having equal angles etc.
The flexibloc takes account of the fact that actions are not parallel and/or round to what would be required for a very good contact. The flexibloc does not need to be accurate, neither does the action body. Either could have 0,5mm or 0.020" runout in any direction, and make no difference to the fit or accuracy.
