Howa .308 Tactical

[Mr. Ed]

Turners is having a sale on this rifle. Its a .308 caliber bolt action rifle with 20 inch barrel, hogue overmould stock, and nikkosterling 4-16 scope. All for $619. http://www.turners.com/engage/events_fathersday.html

What can you tell me about this rifle? The good, the bad, and the ugly.

[RedDawn]

Read this thread

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=305725&highlight=howa

[Spearo]

Buy it. I sold quite a few of them, and never had a customer come back unsatisfied with the purchase.

[Mr. Ed]

Thanks for the comments and the links. Good reading.

[RedDawn]

Yup, I was considering picking up a Howa as well. But customizing my firearms is pretty important to me. I'm probably going to pick up another Remington 700. Turner's has the Remington 700 SPS in 308 for $579. I'm just going to get a $200 Bushnell scope and be done with it for now.

[ar15barrels]

Thanks for the comments and the links. Good reading.

More good reading here:

http://www.caprc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35

http://www.caprc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=34

[LloydXmas250]

Bought that rifle but in .223. Only thing I didn't like was the scope. It's not a horrible scope but it was the first thing I wanted to change. Since then I put in a Timney trigger but that was just because I wanted a lower trigger pull weight, the Howa stock trigger isn't bad at all. Only thing I can think that bugs me, and it's not really a huge deal cause I don't bench shoot much, is that the barrel is a little thin and heats up quickly making my accuracy go down when putting lots of rounds through in a short time. Still, I really really love mine. It's an awesome rifle at an awesome price. Go for it.

[Mr. Ed]

Thanks for the links. That's a lot of information to take in. Ironically, it's harder to make a decision now.

More good reading here:

http://www.caprc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35

http://www.caprc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=34

[brianinca]

I have a Weatherby Vanguard, a fancied up hunting rifle variant of the Howa 1500. Great action, nice and smooth, good bolt extractor design, craptastic adjustable trigger. I put the Timney on mine and it's a huge improvement, looks kinda weird b/c it's a blue trigger on a stainless rifle, but who cares.

That said, I also have a couple of 20" bbl Savage FP's (223 and 308) and I am very much in favor of short heavy barrels. The combination of the Hogue stock (I've put them on several other rifles) and the at least somewhat usable scope sounds like a really neat combo. Looks like a great value if you want to get started in precision shooting AND reloading.

If you're not going to reload, you're going to go broke trying to feed a .308 ammunition with any kind of decent accuracy potential. I would buy that hunting rig in .223 that's in the ad above, at least you can shoot it enough with Wally World ammo to learn something about precision shooting.

As for aftermarket support, as with the AR's 90% of the add-ons for the Remington 700 are crap, so who cares. Unless you want an AICS chassis and $95 magazines to go with it, it's irrelevant. Timney makes a trigger, Houge makes a stock, get some good glass when you can afford it, learn to reload.

Regards,
Brian in CA

[ar15barrels]

If you're not going to reload, you're going to go broke trying to feed a .308 ammunition with any kind of decent accuracy potential. I would buy that hunting rig in .223 that's in the ad above, at least you can shoot it enough with Wally World ammo to learn something about precision shooting.

As for aftermarket support, as with the AR's 90% of the add-ons for the Remington 700 are crap, so who cares. Unless you want an AICS chassis and $95 magazines to go with it, it's irrelevant.

You are not going to learn anything about precision shooting with Wally World ammo unless Wally World is selling match ammo.
It's pointless to use crap ammo and expect precision.

As far as 90% of the add-ons being crap...
Sure, there are some crappy things like injection molded stocks, but those are not things that shooters would buy.
Those things are sold because gun owners will buy them.

Howa and Savage makes great rifles for gun owners.
Once you become a shooter, you will seek out something better.

[ar15barrels]

Didn't mean to step on your ammo and accessories sales

I don't sell ammo or accessories.
Comparing a 10fp to a solid bottom ftr gun is funny.