I just bought the Barreled Action, Imported the Boyds, got Glen Coughlan to do his magic on the trigger and thats it, still haven't bedded it yet. All up it cost $559 for Heavy Barreled Action, $134 for the stock including delivery, Glens Work was $40 at the time so total cost of $733.
Topped it of with a set of Leupold base and rings and a Zeiss Conquest 6.5-20x50, the rifle is used for varminting and spotlighting foxes, rabbits and culling work and has been absolutely brillant and a pleasure to own and use, I can definately recommend Howa, this is the second one I have owned and the other one was just as accurate with a bit of bedding/freefloating work, I wish I'd have kept it to but wasn't to be (young and dumb!) oh well.
I've tested quite a few 55gn projectiles and some 50gn projectiles in it - it shot them all very well. I settled on the Sierra Super Roos as I could buy them cheaper than the rest and they do a bloody fantastic job, very very rare to have to shoot again and if I do its because of shooter error not projectile performance at all.
I have 2 mates who also own Howa's 204 and 223 with boyds or Wild Dog stocks on em and all perform just the same - bloody accurate rifles for the $$$ - where all bloody happy with the results.
Also there are a lot of aftermarket parts for Howas now - if thats your sort of thing!
My load data that works in my Howa is:-
34.5gn AR2206H
55 gn Sierra Super Roos
any brand case they all work fine
CCI 200 primers or any other brand works fine as well
Just fiddle with the seating depth to fine tune accuracy and job done.
Longest kill shot to date around 360+m - love the cal!
yeah i have read the threads on that rifle of yours , sounds like you are enjoying it .
my old BDL in the 22.250 loved 50gr nosler boat tail balistic tips and i am pretty sure the charge it liked was 33.5 of BM2 or it could of been 34 i have it written down some where ( it was about 12 or 15 years ago ).
my little .17 ackley likes the BM2 aswell .
Yep definately love the Howa - fantastic rifle for the money. My mates 204 shoots 3 shot groups under 1/2 " with factory ammo! one of the 3 shot groups was .189" @ 100m.
I can highly recommend them to anyone who's on a tight budget and still wants a quality outfit that shoots extremely well.
mainly because the newer ones i think need a lot more work to make them a good thing , and they are still 1 in 14 barrel which is what my old 700BDL was and i often wished it was just a little faster twist , i would like to try one of these others that have a 1 in 12 .
i do like this one ( REMINGTON 700 VL SS TH ) but still 1 in 14 in the 22.250 , then theres is the trigger , it would need work , i had my BDL trigger done by maddco and set at 6oz, loved it .
what is the trigger like in the above remy.
i know the howa trigger will need work but there is enough price difference to pay for the work and still end up cheaper than the remy .
If you want a good Rem trigger I have a Rem 700 trigger with a 3 lever conversion that I no longer use you can buy that and fit it in minutes
texta wrote: yeah con but how would 50 and 55 grainers in balistic tip handle the fast twist ??? i have a hell of a lot of em left over from when i was r** shooting .
The polymer tipped pills are the pick for shooting light weight pills through fast twists. Given the extortion prices often asked for them, flog them off and buy in bulk the Nosler Competition pills as suggested by adamjp.
Cheers...
Con
texta wrote:i have just been offered an older howa ( about 10 years old or so ) in 243 wood stock, blued short barrel . this rifle has not fired any more than 50 rounds , and i know that to be true , it has a nikko sterling 3.5 - 10 ( i think )on it and is in as new condition , he wants 550 for it , maybe i could buy that and get the barrel swapped to a 22.250 sell the scope and put the money towards a bigger scope , does that sound viable ,
read somewhere that the howa is a bitch to change barrels on for some reason .
The barrels are easy to get off if you don't want to use them again. A cut in the lathe with a parting tool close to the action and they will screw straight off. Photo below of when I did mine:
CZ527s are also said to be extremely hard to get barrels off. The 7.62x39s often have some Loctite like material applied ... the remainder are just thin walled actions and the gorilla that clamps the action vice on can actually squueze the action onto the threads. You sure that's not what happens with the Howas? I know that swapping barrels on a Savage, the barrels will come off easier if the action vice is just finger tight with the receiver covered in a few layers of tape to give some 'bite' rather than clamped on tight. I've tried tightening the vice on a loose Savage barrel and it certainly 'grabs'.
the money that i am about to spend on this rifle is actually money that i have been saving to buy a lathe and or a good table saw ,but i want the 22.250 aswell , its hard when you have such a long list of wants .
i would probably use the lathe more than the rifle too
Con wrote:CZ527s are also said to be extremely hard to get barrels off. The 7.62x39s often have some Loctite like material applied ... the remainder are just thin walled actions and the gorilla that clamps the action vice on can actually squueze the action onto the threads. You sure that's not what happens with the Howas? I know that swapping barrels on a Savage, the barrels will come off easier if the action vice is just finger tight with the receiver covered in a few layers of tape to give some 'bite' rather than clamped on tight. I've tried tightening the vice on a loose Savage barrel and it certainly 'grabs'.
Mulga,
Amen to that!
Cheers...
Con
Con, because the Howa has an integral recoil lug, you don't need to use a vice to clamp the action. I milled up an action wrench that's a nice sliding fit over the action. I just clamped the barrel and used it like a big spanner. Pic below:
and a milling machine and a drill press and .....
x10
