Went into a local pawnshop over a couple of years ago and found a Howa 1500 Hogue stocked rifle and a Vanguard, both a .243. About a $100 difference in their price, with the Vanguard being more costly. Condition of each rifle was about the same. Made an offer for the Howa which the manager accepted accepted, knocking off about another $50. The Howa shot well for me, but disliked the early version of the Hogue stock on it for my shooting from benchrest. . Would make a wood stock for it.
Several months ago, had it rebarreled to 6.5 CM by a fellow range member who is learning gunsmithing. Another range member I shoot with on a regular basis had also given him a Howa rifle to rebarrel and I'd heard about it. Both of us had furnished a Savage threaded barrel to use. Basically, our Howa receiver would be rethreaded to Winchester threads with a tap. Their diameter and pitch of threads is quite close, so running a tap into the receiver is quite easy. Half of the threads on our Savage threaded barrels would be re-threaded to Winchester on a lathe and a Savage barrel nut would be used to attach the barrel......so, we had a Win-Savage barreled Howa action. It has worked well for both of us.
Gent doing the gunsmithing is darn informed about rifles and etc,, but had never owned a Howa. He had a nice impression of the two he worked on. Both of us with the Howas had good opinion of our rifles....we just wanted a different cartridge rifle and our regular shooting buddy, the gunsmith novice, did the work for cheap.
In short, Howa makes a good rifle.
