Howa Action

I have a friend that wants to build a 260 he has a Howa in 308 will this action work as good as say a Remington or Win. other than parts.
It will work better! Its a better made product. Here is my 300 win mag built on a weatherby vanguard. All the work was done by Kevin Cram at Montoure County rifles.

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Custom Howa parts can be had from Pete Linchlon at Reodale precsion
 
I have a friend that wants to build a 260 he has a Howa in 308 will this action work as good as say a Remington or Win. other than parts.


Yes.

The Howa Action is the same as the Weatherby vanguard and is a very good action.

After market parts are harder to find, but they are there under one name or the other.

Nothing more than a barrel change should be nessary everything else should work fine.

J E CUSTOM
 
I just broke down a 308 Howa to chamber a 6.5x47 and it was pretty straight.
.003 to clean up the the action face.
.008 clean up the threads.
.0045 to clean up the action lugs.
.001 cleaned up the bolt lugs and face.

Probably would have shot fine without squareing it up but by the time I set it up to check
it I might as well make the cuts.

Triggers can made to pull at 2lbs and be crisp.

The only down side is the heavy bottom metal if your worried about weight.
 
My Howa schpeal

The 98 Mauser has:
1) flat bottomed receiver to take torque from rifling
2) controlled feed
3) claw typed extractor
4) safety on firing pin, often modified to be 2 or 3 position M70 type
5) multi stage gas filter on firing pin hole for safety
6) bolt handle is integrally forged as part of bolt body
7) safety lug below rear bridge
8) integral recoil lug
9) knife ejector in bolt lug slot
10 an inner C ring to put the tenon threads in compression

The rem 700
1) receiver made from round tubing
2) push feed
3) little wimpy extractor
4) safety on trigger
5) simple bolt
6) bolt handle tacked on with screw and solder
7) nothing for safety if bolt lugs fail.
8) recoil lug is a modified washer that is captured by the receiver and barrel
9) plunger ejector
10) No inner C ring, so the only thing holding the barrel to the receiver is the tenon threads in tension

Of the ~100 bolt action covered in the above book, they seem to all be on the spectrum somewhere between the simple Rem700 and the complex 1898 Mauser design.

The Howa 1500:
1) flat bottom receiver
2) push feed
3) short claw extractor is bigger than rem, but smaller than M98
4) three position bolt safety
5) simple bolt
6) Integral bolt handle
7) nothing
8) integral recoil lug
9) plunger ejector

I would give the Howa Mauser scale = ~50% Mauser
I would give the Howa Rem700 scale = ~50% Rem700

The Howa has good stock available for custom, but the Howa has metric barrel threads, which means getting hands dirty switching greasy gears.
 
I have a weatherby vanguard in 338WM and a Howa 1500 in 300 WSM. Both are shooters and hold their own aginst any fatory rifle. I've lapped the barrels and pillier bedded both of them. I've kill elk at 400 plus yards with them with cold barrel shoots. I've found Remington scope mounts work for mounting optics. Wish I could find composite stocks with alumin beds that would fit them.
Rhino55gun)
 
Actually the Howa has a M16 style extractor that the weatherby doesn't. At least they didn't when I compared them.

Brent
 
Don't know about the older ones. Just compared them today in local sporting goods store while looking for a donor rifle for my daughter. $450 for the vanguard without scope and $550 for Howa scoped youth with another stock.

Brent
 
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Left to right
The rem700 has ~ 0.050" of extractor.
The Howa 1500 has ~ 1.3" of extractor.
The M98 Mauser has ~ 4.25" of extractor.
 

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  • Rem700 0.050in, Howa 2500 1.3in, and M98 4.25in extractors.jpg
    Rem700 0.050in, Howa 2500 1.3in, and M98 4.25in extractors.jpg
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I was wrong again. The weatherby I compared was a older "looked like new" vanguard like the one I have bought around 2002. The new ones are identical to the howa's action as previously said same action Sorry to mislead you.


Brent
 
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