Another retired gent I shoot with regularly had given a Howa action rifle to one of his fellow board of directors of our private range to rebarrel, using a Savage barrel nut and a decent brand Savage replacement barrel. Sooooo, I gave my Howa rifle and a take off 6.5x55 Savage replacement barrel to the guy.....telling him rechamber my 6.5x55 to 6.5CM and do the same installation on my Howa. Gents, the diameter and threads on a Howa is very close to those used on a Winchester. So, running a Winchester thread tap into the Howa receiver changes its threads and you can then rethread a Savage replacement barrel to winchester thread, leaving the barrel threads for the Savage barrel nut alone. Bingo, you have a Howa-Sav barrel.
A few weeks ago, took a number of Visa gift cards I'd accumulated to a local sporting goods store that had the Axis II SP heavy barrel 6.5CM in stock. With the gift cards and the $50 rebate on the rifle, got another 6.5 CM to shoot for a very little out of pocket expense.
