Thread: Kiwi made Howa mini ultralight chassis a reality?

Originally Posted by Puffin

@Wingman, would it be possible please to describe the build of your rifle and the various lightening steps necessary from normal (if any) that gives the stated 1.6kg weight, assuming already that that figure is without bipod, scope and rings?

Hey mate, yes correct, bare rifle weight, without going into to much detail, grams add up to kgs... I really pushed the boat out on my personal build.
The base production chassis that is available is 510gr. My one is a little lighter at 488gr as it has a few custom built prototype parts on it such as the cheek rest and mount and a few hollow drilled parts.
FYI the same chassis in magnesium instead of 6061 T6 alloy weights 382gr.

The barreled actions vary in weight depending on chambering, barrel length, material and barrel profile.. here is a std heavy barrel blued 16.5" .300blk and and a std S/S 20" barrel lightweight 6.5 Grendel on the scales.





My Grendel started as the lightweight S/S model. It has a smaller knox profile and lends itself to a much lighter build. My barrel has been cut back to 10.5" re-profiled and carbon fiber tension sleeved. It now weighs 394 grams. The bare s/s lightweight action is about 360gr from memory but I dont seem to have a photo..



My bolt knob has been removed and replaced with a carbon one which shaved another 7 grams.







All the bolts on the rifle (102gr) have been replaced with titanium bolts (46gr).
All my accessories are also lightweight options:
I run the shorter DPT Mini over barrel suppressor with 2 baffles. 200gr instead of 285gr for the std DPT.



The already light Talley ultra low rings have been machined/ hollowed out on the underside shaving a few more grams... I run a very minimalistic M-loc bipod, and a compact scope.
There are lots of other small things that shave very small amounts of weight but this all removes from the total weight.