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Aftermarket Magazine for Howa?

Howa 1500 Mini action. 6.5 Grendel. Anybody make a decent magazine for these? I’ve looked all over and just found one polymer mag. The stock magazine is junk. The plastic follower (or maybe the spring) is to weak it falls down causing feeding issues almost every time.
 
Legacy Sports is the distributor for Howa rifles. They sell magazines for the 1500. However they do not specifically call out the 6.5 grendal, but do hev the 6.5 Creedmore and the 6.5X55 listed in the magazine section. I don't if either one would work for you.

Link to Legacy sports: https://www.legacysports.com/catalog/howa/

Mike
 
The short answer is No. Besides the unresponsive customer service of Legacy Sports, the main weak point of this rifle is lack of a reliable magazines, which can vary in dimensions (batch to batch) coupled with unreliable performance. The magazines are reported to have a bad tendency to Fail to Feed as well as the ammo nose diving as result of the plastic magazine follower and under-powered magazine spring.

MDT - Please make a replacement magazine for the Mini Howa (6.5 Grendel).... there is a demand. You would have effectively 100% of the market share for the platform, because only a fool would keep buying a factory magazine. Help save a rifle from the apathy / incompetence of the US distributor, Legacy Sports.

I thought I'd try a more direct approach.... maybe MDT will see this and offer to help!

PS - I encourage a representative from Legacy Sport to step forward and offer their insight, updates on QC manufacturing design and construction process improvements they have initiated, and address issues. In the meantime the continuing lack of response from the company is the equivalent to "go pound sand", which doesn't sit well with owners of their product.
 
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Chad from Legacy Sports is on Facebook and extremely responsive there. You might check out the Howa 1500 groups there if you're on FB. I bought PTG bottom metal for my 1500 but I don't have the mini action, just a short action. Wonder if PTG might consider picking that up.
 
Chad from Legacy Sports is on Facebook and extremely responsive there. You might check out the Howa 1500 groups there if you're on FB. I bought PTG bottom metal for my 1500 but I don't have the mini action, just a short action. Wonder if PTG might consider picking that up.
This is one of those rare times where having a Facebook would be handy.
 
Well, I have one even though I don't want one and I'm in the Howa group. Shall I play middleman or are you ready to accept that there is no escape from Farsebook and going to register yourself an account?
 
He says they're actively discussing the metal mag option at LSI. I would expect Howa to come out with one soon. I'm not aware of any other solutions. The last time I saw the question asked in the Howa group the answer was "factory mags is it for now".
 
He says they're actively discussing the metal mag option at LSI. I would expect Howa to come out with one soon. I'm not aware of any other solutions. The last time I saw the question asked in the Howa group the answer was "factory mags is it for now".
Ten4 thank you. Hopefully they do it. It needs to be fixed, if I would have known You had to single feed it by hand I would have spent an extra $200 and got a Tikka.
 
For the mini-Howa the magazines are a Big Complaint on the 6.5 Grendel Forum. It is such an issue that aftermarket stock makers have stayed away from making replacement stocks. Bell & Carlson was brave and responded to shooters requests and rolled out a new stock in Spring 2019, and they were overwhelmed with responses about feed issues. Their customer service and presence on the shooting forums was great. The end result was that the culprit was not their stock or inletting, but a magazine issue (no Quality Control by Legacy Sports). B&C even engaged DPI to make a quality replacement bottom metal...in actual metal instead of the factory plastic part. Unfortunately, this didn't fix the magazine feeding issue.

There are some rumors that someone is working on a replacement bottom metal with a hinged floor plate and internal blind magazine.

Facebook is for friends, family, hobby groups, and marketing/managing Company image. If you are a manufacturer then you need to have a presence where your customer are and be responsive to issues being raised about your products.
 
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Is there a way you could alter the magazine and put in a heavier spring to give more lift/pressure ?

Hey Bill! Others have played with swapping out the magazine spring from the 1500 action magazines (full size magazine) with maybe some minor modifications. There has been some success reported with reduced tendency for nose diving, but you still are dealing with a plastic follower which hangs up (one of the contributors to the failure to feed but not the only culprit).

It really is roulette whether or not any magazine will perform (feed more than 1-3 rounds...if any). Its unfortunate... I like the mini-mauser sized action for smaller cartridges...it perfect size for a field rifle to carry or for a junior shooter. If it were strictly a bench gun then the larger Rem 700 footprint with the added size and weight is a better platform for target shooting.
 
Is there a way you could alter the magazine and put in a heavier spring to give more lift/pressure ?
I was thinking the same thing. The springs would be easy but as OSO says the follower is still plastic. I’ve got a buddy who has a machine shop, maybe I can see if he could make a follower for me. Body would still obviously be plastic but I just want it to function.

Edit: I’m wondering if I could just find a piece of sheet metal that’s the right thickness and just cutting it out like a pattern then put stronger springs in... that should solve the problem I would think.
 
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I was thinking the same thing. The springs would be easy but as OSO says the follower is still plastic. I’ve got a buddy who has a machine shop, maybe I can see if he could make a follower for me. Body would still obviously be plastic but I just want it to function.

Edit: I’m wondering if I could just find a piece of sheet metal that’s the right thickness and just cutting it out like a pattern then put stronger springs in... that should solve the problem I would think.

Beside the choice of materials, the magazine dimensions differ from lot to lot. These small variance cause the follower to bind, magazine not to full seat, and also maybe some issues with the feed lips. Its silly that this is a real issue with today's manufacturing technology.
 
Easy deal. Have everyone on every forum send Howa an email saying, I really wanted a mini action Howa, however, I can't make myself buy one because the magazine is a failure, which makes owning a Howa mini action a liability, not a pleasure. So, I will be buying a CZ. I hope you get the magazine problem figured out one day.

A hundred or so emails like that should be an eye opener. I really have wanted one myself, but I can't make myself buy a headache.
 
Easy deal. Have everyone on every forum send Howa an email saying, I really wanted a mini action Howa, however, I can't make myself buy one because the magazine is a failure, which makes owning a Howa mini action a liability, not a pleasure. So, I will be buying a CZ. I hope you get the magazine problem figured out one day.

A hundred or so emails like that should be an eye opener. I really have wanted one myself, but I can't make myself buy a headache.

They know...lots of people were calling well before the B&C stock debacle, and then everyone was calling them including B&C. On the 6.5 Grendel Forum there was a brave company representative that tried to help. He got frustrated with lack of internal support so he left Legacy to go join, as I recall his words, "a quality organization"... he now works at MDT. That was the last peep I have seen or heard from any representative of Legacy... that was late Spring 2019.
 

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