What I see, is what sometimes happens when someone purchases parts from dif venders & the barrel channel was not cut for that particular barrel. Such as: Wood from TOW, barrel from Rice, Lock from TVM, trigger from ?
IF I am going to buy a preshaped stock, I am going to get the barrel from the same guy, as he had that stock cut off his pattern for a
Specific Make & Size Barrel .
Nutherwords, all barrel sizes are
NOT equal, tho some claim to be. You take any one of them in a 42" swamped barrel that is 15 yrs old & measure it to a new on & you most likely will see a dif. from same manufacturer & dif manufacturer.
Also, machines get wear, thus barrel dimensions can fluctuate. I had a Getz barrel one tome that one measurement from side to side was .040" less than all the others. You can't see it in the rifle, but I know it is there.
Now it very well could be warpage or shrinkage or the cutting holder vibrated loose, really makes no dif, it is what it is. :idunno:
This is how I shrink one. Basically the same as Fred does:
I wipe the barrel with RIG gun grease.
Then wet the barrel channel a few hours with wet paper towels.
Lay a piece of thin shrink wrapping down the barrel channel. (from Lowes in a lil hand held roll)
Set the barrel in the stock & wrap the heck out of it with surgical tubing.
Set it aside for about 2 weeks & come back & have to pull the barrel out of the stock it is so tight.
You can get the tubing at Woodcrafts if you don't have access to it any place else. The tubing is not nearly as good as it used to be, as breaks easier then it used to. But what is available will work.
Walnut seems to comply with this method quite easily, as the grain is more open. So if you soak walnut, check it often. IF you leave it too long it will swell up like a balloon !
Also note the gap may open More when it gets wet, and the wood swells. Don't be alarmed, just let it soak a bit & wrap the bejesus out of it. When I wrap mine I stretch the rubber good (test small piece of rubber for breakage Before ya start)& leave about 1/8" gap between the rubber wraps around the stock.
After looking at the sides of your barrel channel, I would take about 1/2 of that wood off before trying to shrink the gap up, as I feel you have too much wood there to move. But it is just a photo & may not be as thick as it appears.
Keith Lisle