HOWA 1500 varmint in .243

nico243 · May 22, 2008

Well I have finally managed to pick the rifle up from the RFD.

I have gone with a blued action with a green stock.

I have to say first impressions are good, the stock is completely free-floated in the barrel channel and is very nicely shaped and just seems to fit well and feel right and although the rifle does tip the scales at 9.3lbs bare-backed, it doesn't feel that heavy in the shoulder.

Incidently the stock is of the synthetic-rubber over molded HOGUE variety, it has a straight comb with no cheek-piece but the pistol grip is comfortably raked and has a double, ambidextrous palm swell on either side.

There are molded, stippled panels for grip at both the pistol-grip and fore-end which combined with the rubber'ised finish should give excellent grip in any conditions.

The barrel obviously is in heavy profile being the varmint model.

This particular rifle is in the good old venerable flavour of .243winchester and in this calibre it sports a 24" tube with a 1:10 twist, and it gives the rifle an overall length of 44.0".

Sadly there is no detach magazine option with this rifle as yet (although I'm sure with its growing popularity, it will be offered as an option eventually) and loading is facilitated with the bolt open though the open top of the action and directly into the floorplate magazine and gives a capacity of 5+1, unloading is just a simple matter of open the floorplate and dumping cartridges directly into the hand.

The action and bolt seem to have a very nice positive feel to them with a minimal and tiny amount of lateral movement (bolt-slop).

The safety is a manual three position affair, with ~

#1 Full-safe being pulled fully to the rear, in this position both the bolt and trigger are locked.

#2 Half-safe in the middle postion the trigger is locked but the bolt may be opened for loading/unloading.

#3 Safety off pushed fully forward, both bolt and trigger are unlocked for firing.

The trigger is fully adjustable (apparently I haven't looked/tried as yet) but this came out of the box with a nice clean break of just a smidgin over 2.5lbs which to my mind is perfect and needs no adjustment and as a bonus it is totally creep free, to be honest the trigger was a very pleasant suprise and at least for the time being, the Rifle Basix/Timney unit I was planning on fitting will take a back seat.

Overall first impressions are very good and positive, although the proof of the pudding, is in the eating as they say and I have yet to zero and range test it, my initial thoughts are that I made the right decision in buying it, I have just got to now find the time to get some rounds through it and see what it is capable of doing.

between the eyes · May 24, 2008

Well thats grouping nice. :wacko: I have a Howa in .223 (stainless with thumbhole laminate stock) and it's superb, so much so that I have now got on order a Howa .308 with the hogue stock too. I must be frank and say that whilst we get well and truly shafted here in the UK on gun prices, the Howa's are getting rave reviews and seem very good value for money. Anyway if they shoot where you point them then what else do you need? Hope that you like it nico, do you have a sound mod on it?

nico243 · May 24, 2008

Well thats grouping nice. I have a Howa in .223 (stainless with thumbhole laminate stock) and it's superb, so much so that I have now got on order a Howa .308 with the hogue stock too. I must be frank and say that whilst we get well and truly shafted here in the UK on gun prices, the Howa's are getting rave reviews and seem very good value for money. Anyway if they shoot where you point them then what else do you need? Hope that you like it nico, do you have a sound mod on it?

I like it a lot, although its not modded at the moment, I will get it cut/threaded when I get round to it!!