I bought a Howa 1500 Hogue in .223 some months back. It was purchased to replace a Steven 200 .223 which I have never cared for. Fit, finish, feeding, extraction and the trigger were reasons for replacing the Stevens 200. The Tikka is everything a Remington should have been and at a very reasonable price. One-piece bolt, forged receiver, BDL setup on even their cheap model and more recent models have the HACT 2-stage trigger. The trigger isn't a Tikka trigger but it's decent and came from the factory set at 3 lbs. Feeding is so smooth that I can't feel a .223 shell being fed into the chamber. I've had to visually verify and sure enough, it feeds every time positively much like the Tikka. Howas are not lightweight guns like the Tikka. However, I rate them second to Tikka with Tikka being first. That lineup includes Remington, Winchester, Ruger, Savage and CZ. Bottom line, it feeds and ejects smoothly, has a good trigger and shows promise in the accuracy department.
