Howa 300mag Accuracy

[JKRamsey1991]

I have a Howa 1500 300 Win Mag with the 26in heavy barrel in a Boyd’s thumbhole stock that has been glass bedded. Currently equipped with a SWFA 12x SS scope. I have been unable to get the accuracy out of the rifle I expect. I have tried several bullets from 165gr to 220gr and have only occasionally been able to get a 1moa group. Checked the rifle out and it seems to have an extremely long throat. I would have to load the rounds way longer than the mag will allow.

I’m curious what bullets you would recommend that I can load that would allow me to get closer to the lands.

Also if anyone has a Howa in 300 mag can you share your accuracy and/or pet loads.

 

[Steel head]

Lots of bullet jump well now.
I wouldn’t be concerned at all about getting close to the lands.

Look how many 700’s with airline Length runways for throats shoot well.

sometimes finding an accurate load for a factory barrel with hunting bullets is easy peasy and sometimes it’s a real pain with a lot of experimentation.

 

[JKRamsey1991]

Yeah that's true. So far the most consistently decent loads have been cheap blue box federal of all things. Tried some Gold Medal Match and barely kept them in a 2moa group. All my hand loads have been varied. Had one sub moa group with a load of 178gr ELDs and IMR7828 but was never able to replicate that group with subsequent loads of the same so I guess it was a fluke.

 

[8up]

I have one in a MDT ESS chassis. So far, I have shot A191 with really good accuracy. Tried RL-22 with so so results. I wanted to stick to Hogdon powders, since H1000 is hard to find right now, tried H4831sc using Lapua 185 scenars and 190 SMK with real good accuracy, loaded just short of max on those bullet weights. Down in the .4 to .5 MOA area, shooting suppressed.

 

[Thunderskunk]

Do Howa’s need to be trued from the factory? I think the 1500 barreled actions are a steal, but if the out of the box precision is 1 MOA+ it’s a bit of a lemon.

there’s a YouTuber who went from a simple Howa action install on an aftermarket stock to rebarreling the rifle to doing all this crazy bedding to touching up a cam to replacing the trigger system and still got crud results. It’s kinda scaring me off.

 

[308pirate]

Do Howa’s need to be trued from the factory? I think the 1500 barreled actions are a steal, but if the out of the box precision is 1 MOA+ it’s a bit of a lemon.

there’s a YouTuber who went from a simple Howa action install on an aftermarket stock to rebarreling the rifle to doing all this crazy bedding to touching up a cam to replacing the trigger system and still got crud results. It’s kinda scaring me off.

Howa 1500 Varmint, original 308 barrel with about 4200 rounds through it

Ten shot group. 0.1 milliradian grid

 

[sam4886]

My howas shoot lights out as well, all factory. I dont have any insight into the 300 WM specifically, but I would double check screws, mounts, scopes, fundamentals, let someone else shoot it, etc.

 

[RRW]

Does the rifle have a brake? Could be recoil. Did you have anyone else shoot it?

 

[TigernLionGSP]

got one shooting 215 Bergers no problems