New Howa 6.5 CM Build

[Chuckles the 3rd]

Hello all,
Longtime lurker here, I sure appreciate all the knowledge on this forum!

Here’s what I have purchased thus far and begun to assemble:

Howa 1500 6.5 CM Heavy Barrel
EGW 20 Moa Steel Base
Warne Maxima Steel Medium 30mm rings
Vortex HS-T 6x24-50 scope

I decided to skim bed the EGW base to the action with gray Marine-Tex. Started by cleaning and then coating the action with Johnson’s paste wax. Then cleaned the scope base and applied the gray Marine Tex. Tightened the bolts in a criss-cross manner until all four were snug. I then verified that the scope base wasn’t under any bind with the straight edge. Acetone cleaned up the excess.

After curing, I mounted the rings and checked the alignment with the Wheeler alignment bars. Alignment looks dead on to me.

Should I still lap them just to ensure there is no stress on the scope?

 

[jpspeeddemon]

Generally you should not lap high quality rings as they are already good to go. Also, you may want to avoid using the vertical split rings because they have been known to bind erectors and parallax in scopes due to the unique stress from the ring design. There's a thread or two about this.

 

[Chuckles the 3rd]

Wow, just read up on vertical split rings and am returning them immediately. I’ll order up some Nightforce steel rings and update when they arrive. Thank you JP for sharing the info!

 

[stello1001]

Other than what's already mentioned, it looks like you got yourself a pretty good setup. Thumbs up on it and welcome...

 

[stereo.pete]

Can't wait to see pictures of it when she's done as well as some groups!

 

[TravisP]

View attachment 6875436View attachment 6875437View attachment 6875438View attachment 6875439View attachment 6875440View attachment 6875441Hello all,
Longtime lurker here, I sure appreciate all the knowledge on this forum!

Here’s what I have purchased thus far and begun to assemble:

Howa 1500 6.5 CM Heavy Barrel
EGW 20 Moa Steel Base
Warne Maxima Steel Medium 30mm rings
Vortex HS-T 6x24-50 scope

I decided to skim bed the EGW base to the action with gray Marine-Tex. Started by cleaning and then coating the action with Johnson’s paste wax. Then cleaned the scope base and applied the gray Marine Tex. Tightened the bolts in a criss-cross manner until all four were snug. I then verified that the scope base wasn’t under any bind with the straight edge. Acetone cleaned up the excess.

After curing, I mounted the rings and checked the alignment with the Wheeler alignment bars. Alignment looks dead on to me.

Should I still lap them just to ensure there is no stress on the scope?

Nice looking rig. I purchased this exact rifle. Mine has a threaded barrel. I also purchased an egw 20 moa base and also a vortex HST 6x24. I went with tactical precision rings as I have used them before and have had good luck with them. I will be following to see what kind of accuracy you are getting. We have had a very long winter where I live and have not been able to get out and shoot my rifle yet. I did purchase several boxes of the Hornady 140 eld match to use, have read great things about this load, I do not reload. Good luck with your rifle.

 

[el_cazador713]

Great looking rig. Interested to see how it shoots.. See a lot of folks recommending Howa barreled actions for builds

 

[Chuckles the 3rd]

I finally received my Badger Ordnance steel scope rings (#306-21) today and couldn’t wait to mount the scope. I love that they are serialized pairs!
Started by mounting them with the alignment bars setup to ensure they were aligned. After that, I set up the scope and action levels to get the scope close to plumb and finalized that with torquing them to 12 in-lbs. I plan to hang a plumb and verify that the reticle is plumb the action this weekend.

I have the springs to lower trigger pull to around 1 lb and plan to do that ASAP so I can start collecting data on her very soon. I hope it shoots as well as the action smoothness and overall quality would suggest!

 

[jpspeeddemon]

Is the trigger too heavy for you? I wouldn't worry about adjusting the trigger if it's already less than ~3lbs.

Also, the rings should be torqued to the base at 65 INCH-pounds and the scope caps (the part that clamps down on the scopetube) should be ~20-25 INCH-pounds.

I have a Howa HCR in 6.5 creedmoor and Hornady match ammo has shot great. Federal Gold Medal chambered tight.

 

[Chuckles the 3rd]

I love light triggers so that’s what I’d like to pursue. I may just shoot it and worry about the trigger later.

The base mounts are torqued to 65 in-lbs. From the manual I found BO’s website, they said the cap bolts should be finger tight plus 90 degrees. I think that felt like 12-15 in-lbs testing that with the torque wrench so I picked 12. Vortex says no more than 18 in-lbs.

Am I off base with the torque on my cap bolts?

 

[stello1001]

I love light triggers so that’s what I’d like to pursue. I may just shoot it and worry about the trigger later.

The base mounts are torqued to 65 in-lbs. From the manual I found BO’s website, they said the cap bolts should be finger tight plus 90 degrees. I think that felt like 12-15 in-lbs testing that with the torque wrench so I picked 12. Vortex says no more than 18 in-lbs.

Am I off base with the torque on my cap bolts?

No you are not, I like to do mine 15 to 20 inch pounds...

 

[Chuckles the 3rd]

Torqued the cap bolts to 15 in-lbs today. Also ordered Norma Match 130grn, Hornady Match 140grn and Hornady Match 147 to try out. I’ll post a range report when I test her out.

 

[dino67]

The Howa HACT trigger is very easy to lighten up with a 5min spring change. I have a small coil spring pack from Brownells I use to lighten Howa and Tikka triggers. You can easily change the first or second stage pull weight to whatever suits you. I've done quite a few HACT triggers around 1-1.5lb. No need for an aftermarket trigger. I have a CG Mod 22 2 stage trigger for my Tikka and actually prefer the HACT trigger with a spring change.

Not my vid but will assist you with pulling the trigger down. I don't cut the factory spring I just replace with a lighter gauge from the spring pack and cut it to length.

 

[mahmoud]

I'm looking for a steel base for my 1500. It seems like EGW, Warne and Burris are the only ones made in steel. I love EGW 1911 parts but no experience with their other offerings. So how do you like their base? Nice rifle BTW.

 

[Chuckles the 3rd]

I'm looking for a steel base for my 1500. It seems like EGW, Warne and Burris are the only ones made in steel. I love EGW 1911 parts but no experience with their other offerings. So how do you like their base? Nice rifle BTW.

I like the EGW base quite a bit! It’s a heavy quality piece that only needed a couple thousandths of Marine Tex to match it perfectly to the receiver. I highly recommend it!

 

[mheimer_45]

Don’t mean to hijack the thread but if any of you guys ever replace the stock on those beautiful rifles I sure would like a camo one.

 

[Chuckles the 3rd]

Well I finally got to take her to the range and she surely impressed! It shot well under 1” 3 round groups with both the Hornady 140 and 147 gen ELD-M. The pic with groups the top two rounds are Norma Match 130 grn and the bottom tree are 147 grn Hornady ELD Match.
The tightest group is 147 again and the last is the 140 which was still very good but I could have done a bit better. I didn’t bring calipers but held the ruler on the SOG multi-tool up for measurement.