About a year ago I purchased a Howa.....(same thing) in .308 Winchester. It was a marvelous shooter but I wasn't liking the synthetic stock So I restocked it in a marvelous piece of spalted Maple with cocobolo appontments.....It still shot fairly well but not like the gun did in the original stock.....I think the education is this.....if it shoots well, don't fix it!
I have a couple of basic Howa 1500s, a 6.5x55 (LA) and a 6.5 Creedmoor (SA), and immediately swapped stocks 'cause I absolutely hate the Hogue style stocks that came on them. The 6.5x55 went through multiple stock before I settled on a V2 Griptonite take-off stock. That experience led me to go straight to a B&C Weatherby style Medalist stock for the 6.5 Creedmoor. If that had been my primary, 1st tier, 6.5 Creedmoor, I would have opted for a McMillan Hunter, but on a lower tier rifle the B&C and Weatherby Griptonite are enough better than the original factory installed stocks to justify the cost. Sometimes when you weigh all of the available options, good enough really is good enough.
