With the barrel free floated there is more tendency for the stock to flex. The stock is plastic, but its design is stronger than the hogue overmolded stock.
If your goal is to stiffin the front you can do it a few ways, 1), you can dremmel fit in a steel rod of your liking (available at home depot) does not have to be very thick, then fill in the front portion with acraglass(can get at sportsmans Warehouse in Thornton). Acraglass is great for this as it is less viscous and will find all the voids and fill them in. Now you are only stiffining the stock not bedding the barrel, so no need to fill the entire channel up.
The other method is to fill the void with firestop or other spray foam (also available at HD), then trim, then put acragel or devcon/marinetex on top and bed the barrel (with 20mil tape to create a gap). What you will end up with is a channel that follows the contour of your barrel but is floated.
OK, so I am not sure if you have other rifles but I will give you my take on the Varmint stock. Little back story.
I have a Varmint that has been in various stocks and configurations over the last few years. Everything from Remington plastic, to walnut, laminate, HS, B&C, XLR and now back to stock plastic. My reason is that I have another in a McMillan/Atlas/NF config in 308 so no need to double the expense and efforts.
Having the same rifle in all those configs proved to me that stocks do effect accuracy, but not as much as good form and a good load.
Anyway, one of my goals this summer is to prove to myself that I can shoot 1 moa or less out to 700-800 consistently with cheap Remington tupperware. Call me hard headed but I find it to be a good challenge. Anyone can just drop a few thousand on aftermarket stock.
So the first go around failed, as I used the stock untouched as it came from Remington. It shot great, but then started drifting due to heat shift.
So I bedded the action under the recoil lug area and at the tang with Devcon 10110. I left the pressure pad and with everything complete there is approx 8 lbs of upward pressure on the barrel. (by using a trigger strain guage to pull the barrel back)
So now there is no more heat shift after 40 rounds at 100 Yards. I will give it a try this weekend out at Pawnee to see what I can do out to about 500 (if I can).
If the stock fails again, I will then move on to Aluminum pillars. I am pretty confident in devcon as it is tough stuff, but have used aluminum pillars in other rifles. Ernie has a good set and cut to fit the Remington
Trigger Springs|Aluminum Pillar|Pillar Bedding|Gunsmithing
So I will update as I make progress.
Oh, here is a link to two AGI bedding videos, not sure how long they will be up on youtube so it will be best to watch them as soon as you can.
https://www.youtube.com/results?filters=week&search_query=agi+bedding&lclk=week
