AlNyhus
Silver $$ Contributor
I'm a sucker for an orphan gun. I spotted this Howa 1500 308W at a local gun store in the 'Used' section...Hogue rubber textured stock, Burris Signature rings and a newer Burris Fullfield 4.5-14 E1 scope on it. After a bit of back and forth with the salesman, I lumped it into the truck and headed home.
It hadn't been shot much and had been well cleaned, except for some carbon. A bit of JB fixed that. The chamber and muzzle on the 20" fluted barrel looked great. The stock had to go. A want add on here snagged a nice Bell and Carlson stock. The trigger is the standard Howa HACT two stage. A few tweaks and a Gun Bloke spring kit has it breaking right at 1 lb. The stock got bedded, Burris XTR steel bases were bedded to fit the action and a set of Discovery Optic rings plopped on. Scope is a Sightron S-Tac 3-16.
At the range, both 748 and N135 proved very good, as expected. Brass is Starline, bullets are my 117's on the 1.00" jacket. The edge goes to the N135 as it's load window appears a bit wider. This was yesterday with 3 shot groups, scanning for loads. The winds were snappy from the 3:00 at 12-16 with quick changes.
Finally, I reshot the N135 load by just watching the flag angle but intentionally ignoring the velocity. At our range with either 3 or 9 o'clock winds, that gives a good indication of stable the load is. The N135 gave just a nice 3 shot 'weather report' group.
Next time out, it will get zero'd at 200 and a drop/deflection chart done out to 600-ish with these 117's. There's a lot of accuracy in factory guns when the time is taken to work with them. The chamber and barrel on this Howa rivals anything I've seen in a factory gun.
Good shootin'
-Al
It hadn't been shot much and had been well cleaned, except for some carbon. A bit of JB fixed that. The chamber and muzzle on the 20" fluted barrel looked great. The stock had to go. A want add on here snagged a nice Bell and Carlson stock. The trigger is the standard Howa HACT two stage. A few tweaks and a Gun Bloke spring kit has it breaking right at 1 lb. The stock got bedded, Burris XTR steel bases were bedded to fit the action and a set of Discovery Optic rings plopped on. Scope is a Sightron S-Tac 3-16.
At the range, both 748 and N135 proved very good, as expected. Brass is Starline, bullets are my 117's on the 1.00" jacket. The edge goes to the N135 as it's load window appears a bit wider. This was yesterday with 3 shot groups, scanning for loads. The winds were snappy from the 3:00 at 12-16 with quick changes.
Finally, I reshot the N135 load by just watching the flag angle but intentionally ignoring the velocity. At our range with either 3 or 9 o'clock winds, that gives a good indication of stable the load is. The N135 gave just a nice 3 shot 'weather report' group.
Next time out, it will get zero'd at 200 and a drop/deflection chart done out to 600-ish with these 117's. There's a lot of accuracy in factory guns when the time is taken to work with them. The chamber and barrel on this Howa rivals anything I've seen in a factory gun.
Good shootin'
-Al
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