Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles THE Truck Gun? (Howa Mini)

As you may or may not know, Howa is making a Mini these days.

A Vixen it is not. But full UBER it is.

This is the #2 and 22" version.


Trigger is a two stage and required no adjusting. It's downright UBER.

2.3 is about the max you can get for COL out of the 10 round mag. You can touch lands with the 50gr. V-Max and the 60gr. V-Max in my rifle.



60's shot great, 75gr. BTHP shot great, 50's were UBE, 75gr. V-Max was... horrid. I have only used CFE223, Lapua brass, and the 7 1/2 at this point. Stuck with the 60's because I have 500 or so of them and wanted to try them on dogs.




Dave

I bedded mine and opened the barrel channel right out of the gate. Used a Bushnell 10X for initial work up and all seemed well.



7lbs with the Bushnell:

One of our own (MtnBoomer) slimmed this stock down for me.

Holy freakin' UBER compared to the initial handle. The Mini action is great. The barrel contour is great. The trigger is great. The handle is NOT proportioned to the rest of the gun from the factory.

MtnBoomer fixed all that.

Mine generally resides in Idaho where I have a need for a truck gun but it is a 6# 8x57.

I ended up having to decide what scope I wanted to ride on this. Low weight was sorta the goal. And I love the idea of a 10 round mini-carbine twisted 1-9".

So with that I threw a Leupold 1-4X on top and so far so good.

Take a few more ounces off this since MtnBoomer removed material. We're not in Kimber MT range, but when you consider this is a $329 starter kit, you can look past that.

Little bit of group shooting and confirmation of zero this evening.

Things are looking good. All I need to do now is find some dogs...







Travis

Your's is the nicest Howa Mini I have laid eyes on.

And I had zero idea they had those in Idaho....

Nice looking handle Flave. Looks like Mtnboomer knows how to handle a stOCK.

He handled my handle oh-so-well.



Travis

Lotsa dogs running around in Browning.

That's why I bought a can.




Travis

Now that I think of it, next time I drive through there I'm gonna give each kid a can of bear spray and roll down their respective windows.




Travis

Stop derailing my thread.




Clark

Yah, ya'lls a hoot.... One thing 'bout Flav. He let me handle it without much convincing!

You could have saved a lot of time and money, and gotten a RAR!

Looks good Travis, these Howa 1500s have my interest, but now I may need to look into these minis. I would like to pick up a 223 that I could later upgrade and rebarrel. So I have a few questions:

How did MtnBoomer go about shaving down the handle?

Would these actions be considered nice enough to rebarrell down the road?

The mini would require a different inlet than stnd 1500 S/A, No?

Are you considering threading yours for a can, or is the bbl too thin?

Sounds good Trav....

I might have to consider getting me one of those also...

since you've had such good luck with yours...

Cool looking rifle and great write up...

if yours in an Uber... then I'll have to look at the Unter Model..

If I dropped your name... ya think where ya got it from would give me a discount?

Flave, that does look downright ube!

No idea. I just let artists work.



Absolutely. They are very solid and finished well.




Yes. McMillan does not currently inlet for the Mini. If you purchase 50, they will make a mold. If you buy 100, you will have exclusive rights to the inlet. I thought about this, but got drunk instead.



I have no doubt they could be threaded but I will probably leave this one as is. Although I may hacksaw the barrel to 19".




Clark

You know you want to handle my mini.





Dave