Thread: Howa good is your Howa? (picture heavy)

I have occasionally seen disparaging comments made about the humble Howa 1500. There seem to be threads singing the praises of most of the other major brands so I thought I'd start one up for what may be my favorite rifles.

I have jotted down my experiences and thoughts below. If you can't be bothered reading it all, here is my conclusion: They are great. In my opinion, one of, if not the best value for money options on the market, especially second hand. I'm not saying they are the best for everyone, or everything, but in my experience, they are good performers and bloody good fun.


The Howa 1500 first came on my radar about 5 years ago when I was looking to upgrade my Norinco 223. I had pretty much set my sights on spending around 2k on a new Tikka setup, when a friend of mine visited with a stainless Howa houge 1500 to have a play with. We were shooting some very cheap Geco FMJ and with limited talent and expertise hitting 3-inch clay birds at 200 yards with a 3-9 scope pretty reliably. That visit saved me $1400, as the next week I picked up a second-hand, scoped, suppressed stainless 1500 in 223. Since then I have spent some of that $1400 giving it a barrel chop and adding a bit more magnification, and this is the kind of shooting that same rifle is consistently capable of, even though it's still in the much-maligned factory houge stock.




So when last year a mate of mine, a farmer and occasional hunter asked me what I thought he should buy with a limited budget that would be accurate, durable and reliable, I sourced him a green houge 308 off of the buy-sell on here, and we dropped a 4-16 Vixen on top. The full spend, scoped, suppressed and with Leupold rings was $1400. The first group we shot through it was with Hornady American Whitetail 165 gr. Fair to say the search for a suitable ammo was done immediately. It also shot Winchester super X at 1 inch. Also fair to say he was happy.



Now I am a contrary individual, I generally don't like to own what everyone else says is the best thing to own. Don't ask me why, it's a problem, but it can be a fun problem because it leads me to trying out new and different stuff. It can also be an expensive problem, when that stuff sucks. That wasn't the case earlier this year when after 2 years of joylessly opening my gun cabinet to retrieve a very accurate, durable and reliable, but boring Tikka T3X 308, I dropped the required cash on a used Howa 1500 Alpine, in 308. No more magazine to keep track of, a more positive half cock, and a 3 position safety were also among the reasons for my change. But mainly the aforementioned contrariness.
The Alpine stock is very nice. Its light, very rigid and after a very minimal bedding job on the front recoil lug, It was time to head out ammo testing. I had had too much coffee the first day, and the results were a little erratic. Both the Hornady Superperformance SST 150's and Fusion 165's showed promise. Since the first 3 shot group was the last of my Superperformace, and I couldn't find it in shops at the time, I pinned my hopes on the Fusion. Last weekend a caffeine-free attempt didn't disappoint.










Any other Howa fans out there, share away!