Howa Rifles ?

[deadkelly]

this thread has been a really great read thanks to all for making it happen . i'm buying a howa 1500 barreled action in 243 win & bell & carlson #2998 varmint / tactical stock , i'll get glen to do his magic to the stock trigger . i can't wait .

[LoneRider]

DK,adjusting the trigger is a piece of piss.
have ago yourself,if you dont like it,then send it away.
mine is nice,light and crisp now.
its not rocket science.

[deadkelly]

DK,adjusting the trigger is a piece of piss.
have ago yourself,if you dont like it,then send it away.
mine is nice,light and crisp now.
its not rocket science.

wee , i will have a little play with it & see how it goes . i thought old mate would give it a stoning or wet & dry to take the ruff marks out .

[bigfellascott]

I think you have made a great choice mate, the heavy barreled versions really shoot well on the whole, mine is a 22.250HB and has been great from day one it shot great groups even with factory ammo! First five shots ever fitted into a 10c piece! that was only at 50m though, I have since started reloading for it and it has just gotten better, doesn't seem to mind what brand of projectile I put through it they all shoot really well with excellent groups from all of them, so I just bought a box of 1000 55gn Sierra Super Roos, they have been brillant in it as well, I've only used AR2206H in it and its been fantastic as well so haven't needed to find anything else.

I just fiddled with the Seating Depth a bit to find what it likes and that was it, groups shrank down again and I haven't looked back been brilliant. I did a range test while out hunting with my mate, we shot at a target at 260m away and I fired 2 shots only and they were nearly touching!!! O'lmate nearly fell over - he couldn't believe how well it shot. I kept telling him it is a great rifle, I think he's finally convinced

Good luck with yours mate, if you get rid of the hogue stock and put the one you like on it, I think it will be fine, I've heard some of the hogue stocks have been causing feed problems and as soon as the stock is changed the problems go, so it wasn't a Howa problem as such but a problem with the Hogue stocks. And yes Glen does a fantastic job without a doubt, he hones and polishes all the faces etc, and for $58 you can't go wrong, and the best part is he sends all the info needed to do further adjustments if you need to! How goods that.

[bigfellascott]

My mate bought a Howa HB Action and a wild dog stock, he used it for the first time yesterday and with factory ammo Fed's I think and after doing the run in he shot some 3 shot groups between .198" -.6"! @ 100m - not bad at all for factory ammo, he's another Howa convert now!!

He can't wait to do some reloading now - not sure if you can really improve much on those results though!!


Just highlight the link below and it should come up in the search bar and hit the Search button!
http://www.aushunt.com.au/Forum/index.p ... opic=20495

[GregT]

Hi Fella's, I just joined up on this forum. I'm a bit of a Howa enthusiast as well. Personally I think the actions are just about perfect out of the box. I just put together a 6BR on a Howa action. I measured up everything on the action while I had it apart and there was nothing that needed any truing, it all measured within a couple of tenths as it came from the factory. The Hogue stocks are fine for a carry around rifle, not the greatest off a bipod because they're a bit flexy. I made an aluminium chassis for the 6BR and I just bought a Manners T1 for the new 223 I've got coming next week.

I don't think there's a better rifle for even half as much money again. The go is to buy a barreled action and choose a stock that suits. I've got a Boyds thumbhole that makes a really nice carry around rifle with a light barreled action as well.

Cheers,
Greg

[trevort]

welcome Greg

[MISSED]

Nice to see another new member, Greg can u post some pics of the chassis you made.

[JasonF]

And post some of the targets you shot during load development too Greg. The members here will love them!

[GregT]

This is probably a bit slack but here's a copy and paste of a thread on the 6BR I put on another forum. I did this rifle to use in these practical/tactical matches that seem to be taking off now. I picked up a barrel that had been fitted to a Howa, given how well they are machined from the factory, it screwed on to my receiver and headspaced perfectly.

I've got a machine shop so I made a chassis for the Howa to fit the AICS skins, I made it as light as possible given I planned to use it in these sort of matches.



I had a 223 Howa that had done a fair bit of work and the barrel was getting a little second hand so it donated its action. I'd never had a barrel off a rifle before but I read a fair bit about it so I made up a barrel wrench that fitted around the front of the action and the recoil lug.



The barrel was ultra tight so I stuck it in the lathe and cut a relief just in front of the action to unload the threads, the barrel spun off no problems after that.





I cleaned and measured the action and it was lovely, everything was square and straight so it needed no work, the lugs were both bearing evenly so I didn't worry about lapping them. I did need to open up the bolt face to take the BR case. I stripped the bolt down, set it up in the little CNC mill and opened the bolt face to the right diameter and skimmed a couple of tenths of a thou off the face just to ensure it was square.



Then I measured up the barrel tenon and chamber position using a go-gauge and depth mic, everything seemed fairly close so I screwed the barrel into the action and gave it a test.



Seeing I only had a go-gauge, I made some shims from .0025" paper and used them with the go-gauge.



With no shim the bolt closed easily, with .0025" it was firm to close and with .005" there wasn't a hope of closing it. The headspace came out at .002", not too bad for a barrel that was chambered to suit another action, Howa must machine these things pretty well!



Once I knew the headspace was right, I modified the original 223 extractor claw to work with the 308 case head size. A little trial and error got it working fine so I cleaned and reassembled the bolt.

I set the barrel up in the lathe on a soft spigot and centre so I didn't damage the crown or chamber and gave it a polish, then engraved the caliber into it. I had a typo on the engraving but once it's cut, it's too late so I've got a 6 milimetre instead of a 6 millimetre. (Aussie spelling)



I gave it all a clean then put it back together again.



I'd heard a couple of horror stories about getting the 6BR to feed from a magazine and I tried a couple of different setups, finally I settled on the plastic AI mags from my 223, I opened them out to let the BR rounds feed up and shortened the feed lip to let them pop out a little earlier. About an hour with a die grinder and porting roll and a smooth file had them working beautifully, I can fit 7 rounds in the mags, 6 is probably more comfortable, that's fine as 5 would have been enough though I am going to make some single stack 10 round mags for it where the follower only pushes on the case but they're some time in the future.



Here's a video of it feeding (if it shows up)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAZ6-X5i-vo

So far I've put around 200 rounds through it and I haven't had it misfeed or jam up yet, it feels as smooth as the 223 was.

I did end up milling the bolt handle and making a bigger knob for it, it was a little tight extracting with the factory knob and with the wider stock and bigger scope, there wasn't a lot of room to operate it.







I topped the rifle off with a Warne 20 MOA rail, Leupold QWR rings and a Vortex Viper PST 4-16x50 FFP mil/mil scope. I'm very impressed by the scope, it's very good mechanically and I was using it today to spot for a mate at 500m so the optics are far better than the price would indicate!

I've done a bit of load development over the last week or so and have got it pretty much sorted using the 108gr Berger bt's and 30.2gr of 2208 powder with the bullet seated .010 into the lands. I'm getting 2960 FPS out of the 22.5" barrel and it's shooting .2-.3MOA out to 500m which is as long as the local range is. I've got a couple of matches next weekend out to 800m so it will be interesting to see how it goes!



I'll post up some targets later on, I better go get an engine finished first that I need to get finished by this arvo.

Cheers,
Greg

[LoneRider]

thats real nice mate.
wish i had that gear in the shed.

[deadkelly]

wow greg that is a bloody awesome rig you have there mate . by the sounds of things your rifle has ticked all the boxes .
BTW is a howa 204 ruger & 243 win the same action size ???? i'm about to order a stock but am abit dazzeled as which caliber to buy first . i think i'll go the 204 first thats for varmints & the 243 for long range target & play work .

[MISSED]

Man that pisses me off How can 1 man have that much talent Very nice work

[adamjp]

wow greg that is a bloody awesome rig you have there mate . by the sounds of things your rifle has ticked all the boxes .
BTW is a howa 204 ruger & 243 win the same action size ???? i'm about to order a stock but am abit dazzeled as which caliber to buy first . i think i'll go the 204 first thats for varmints & the 243 for long range target & play work .

Same action. Differences are;

bolt face

extractor claw

magazine box

nothing else.

[adamjp]

Man that pisses me off How can 1 man have that much talent Very nice work

The little BR can shoot, and that scope is pretty damn good for an FFP model at that price range.

The workshop - well it's big and has more tools than I can recognise. Greg does a great job prepping engines with a fair few locals using his services to make some ridiculously high power japanese and american engines. He did the machining on my Mazda engine and was the only bloke locally who talked Japanese engine stuff, not just V8 rubbish. I would use him again and recommend him to anyone needing engine work done. (he works any engine - there was a crappy 1960s Valiant straight 6 head on the decking machine on Wednesday afternoon)

His application of that engine building knowledge to fiddling with guns looks like paying dividends. The 6mmBr is a full custom rig even if it does not look like it. Shoots like a pearler too. I won't post the pictures, but I'll say up front, the 500m target was shot off a bloody bipod! It shows that the rifle works, and that Greg can shoot. He even managed to pip the frankenrifle on the day!