Howa 1500 Upgrades

[DEEPCREEKTAC]

Looking for some suggestions to upgrade my Howa 1500, it currently has the Hogue Kryptek painted stock, I had the barrel threaded and attached a Dead air muzzle brake, and for glass it has a Trijicon 5-20x50 scope.

I would like to upgrade the stock/chassis last so those suggestions will be at the bottom of my list. Currently I'm looking for a new scope rail because to me this one seems to be polymer just by looks and feel of it. Looking into getting a Jard trigger for it (local company), bipod (currently just used sling mount with weaver bipod) would be interested in some arca mount suggestions. Anything else just add in.

I've been pretty happy with its stock performance, just looking to pinch little more out of it.

 

[ArTeeKay]

Your scope rail is almost definitely not polymer of any kind. To confirm, give it a light stroke with a file. You'll know right away if it's plastic or not.

When upgrading, make one change at a time, otherwise you'll chase your tail for a month of Sundays if something goes wrong but you're not sure what change caused the issue.

 

[Hawk in WY]

New spring for the trigger.

 

[rico4prez007]

You honestly can upgrade the trigger with a pen spring. That way you keep the factory spring. As long you can find one to fit in the spring hole, your good. That's what I did, brought it down to about 1.5 lbs.
You can also purchase a spring or cut the factory spring.
What are your goals?
This can help people assist you better in your journey.
TBH shoot what you got! And proceed from there. Ammo is $$$. I'm still shooting my houge stock.
I was shooting my factory trigger until, I reached 500 yards. I Had to lighted the trigger at that distance. Made my trigger more clean and crisp, where I don't have pull. It's a wall and press.
Chassis for Howa KRG bravo &
Check out MDT.
How did you like that break?
Your Howa barrel didn't come Threaded?
I run the EC tuner break from Eric Cortina.
Love that thing, I was able to tune 147 grain fmj to sub moa 3 shot groups. Before the break 3.5 in group at 100 smh lol

 

[moaorbust]

I have an MPA chassis, available if interested, on my Howa 1500 with a Timney trigger set at 2lb. Most triggers seem decent these days so that wouldn’t be my priority. The Atlas bipod I run uses an Area 419 ARCA mount so I can slide it easy. Having the chassis built in rail has made my life easier so that I recommend but only if you do positional shooting. The rail also makes using tripods using an Anvil easy.

Area 419 makes some very nice rails you could add cheaply. I took that route when I first started.

 

[stanley_white]

My Howa is in an MDT ACC, my scope rail is MDT 20 MOA (it has a recoil lug, which I like, even if I don’t need it), the Howa Tactical Bolt Knob is a must have. I run an Accu-Tac SR-5 G2: ARCA SPEC QD BIPOD.

-Stan

 

[celltech]

If you have the technical ability...grind down the bolt knob, thread it, and put on a much better one. I personally like the HACT triggers and just cut the OEM spring down a bit. Because I handload my .308 in SRP brass I had the bolt head bushed and the firing pin ground down to eliminate primer blanking.

 

[rico4prez007]

If you have the technical ability...grind down the bolt knob, thread it, and put on a much better one. I personally like the HACT triggers and just cut the OEM spring down a bit. Because I handload my .308 in SRP brass I had the bolt head bushed and the firing pin ground down to eliminate primer blanking.

Did you blueprint the action ?

 

[celltech]

Did you blueprint the action ?

That is a little deeper down the rabbit hole than I am capable of, or interested in. It shoots good enough as is

 

[pizzadave80]

Commenting so I can follow your progress. I recently put a Howa together from a barreled action off Brownwells. Haven't shot it yet. Factory trigger is around 1 3/4" for keeping without adjusting. Interested in what others have done to it as I intend to try 1,000 yards eventually with it.

 

[pizzadave80]

This is mine in an MDT XRS chassis. I opted for this over KRG Bravo because I have an R700 in a Bravo and while it is decent it just felt too plastic for me to use as a bench gun. Great for hunting though! I have an MDT grnd pod with 419 Arca clamp. The rail is from sawtooth rifles and made to fit this stock perfect.

 

[rico4prez007]

Commenting so I can follow your progress. I recently put a Howa together from a barreled action off Brownwells. Haven't shot it yet. Factory trigger is around 1 3/4" for keeping without adjusting. Interested in what others have done to it as I intend to try 1,000 yards eventually with it.

How does it shoot now ?

 

[dirtybores]

I'm not sure you make appreciable gains doing alot to these guns. If you want to toy with them for fun or because you'll enjoy shooting it more and then shoot more...cool but unnecessary. I'll attach photos of my two, one with all sorts of work done, and the other mostly factory. They both shoot very well but exceedingly similar. Both have taken pigs and deer, both have seen steel to 1200.

Howa 1500 6CM, XRS Chassis, Snyder weights, HS Precision 10x 1:7 fluted barrel, receiver face squared, bolt bushed by Desh Ind, Knob added by LRI, Rifle Basix trigger then back to HACT with new springs.

Weatherby Vanguard 6.5CM, Mcmillan stock, PTG bottom metal.

 

[pizzadave80]

How does it shoot now ?

I have not had a chance to go out yet. It is still very much winter here and now we are thawing and most places are soon under water from overland flooding. I have a spot not too far out of town that I can go too once we can get to it!

 

[rico4prez007]

I would say shoot it as is. Take it to distance 100, 300, 400, 500 yards. Your group size will tell you what you need to upgrade in your system. I did not need to upgrade my factory trigger until I was shooting pass 450 yards. I knew a trigger job was necessary at that distance. Can I upgrade the stock, sure but ammo is expensive. I would rather spent the 400 bucks on ammo and shoot the houge stock right now. At 800 yards the story could change and then a stock would be warranted for a tighter group at that distance. Shoot it, gather data. One step at a time.
Hope this helps,

 

[rico4prez007]

I'm not sure you make appreciable gains doing alot to these guns. If you want to toy with them for fun or because you'll enjoy shooting it more and then shoot more...cool but unnecessary. I'll attach photos of my two, one with all sorts of work done, and the other mostly factory. They both shoot very well but exceedingly similar. Both have taken pigs and deer, both have seen steel to 1200.

Howa 1500 6CM, XRS Chassis, Snyder weights, HS Precision 10x 1:7 fluted barrel, receiver face squared, bolt bushed by Desh Ind, Knob added by LRI, Rifle Basix trigger then back to HACT with new springs.

Weatherby Vanguard 6.5CM, Mcmillan stock, PTG bottom metal.

That McMillan is so sexy!! Good stuff

 

[DEEPCREEKTAC]

Your scope rail is almost definitely not polymer of any kind. To confirm, give it a light stroke with a file. You'll know right away if it's plastic or not.

When upgrading, make one change at a time, otherwise you'll chase your tail for a month of Sundays if something goes wrong but you're not sure what change caused the issue.

You're right definitely not polymer, just an excessive amount of paint on it. I'll be sure and do my upgrades 1 at a time.

You honestly can upgrade the trigger with a pen spring. That way you keep the factory spring. As long you can find one to fit in the spring hole, your good. That's what I did, brought it down to about 1.5 lbs.
You can also purchase a spring or cut the factory spring.
What are your goals?
This can help people assist you better in your journey.
TBH shoot what you got! And proceed from there. Ammo is $$$. I'm still shooting my houge stock.
I was shooting my factory trigger until, I reached 500 yards. I Had to lighted the trigger at that distance. Made my trigger more clean and crisp, where I don't have pull. It's a wall and press.
Chassis for Howa KRG bravo &
Check out MDT.
How did you like that break?
Your Howa barrel didn't come Threaded?
I run the EC tuner break from Eric Cortina.
Love that thing, I was able to tune 147 grain fmj to sub moa 3 shot groups. Before the break 3.5 in group at 100 smh lol

My goals are slowly to reach out to 800 yards if I can, I will be working to get proficient though first, cause like you said ammo is expensive, but luckily I have a few hundred rounds stored up. I will be sticking to just my Hogue stock for a while unless I come across a deal I can't pass for a chassis. My barrel didn't come threaded so I had a gunsmith thread it a few years back and ran a AAC break on it for my SD7.62-6 can. Now I had the can recored to run Dead air mounts because most of my cans are from dead air and the key mount system is just so much better than the AAC version IMO. I have yet to run the DA break as I just attached it this winter.

Appreciate all the comments. Look forward to seeing/reading what others have to say and their builds.

 

[mheimer_45]

I’ve got 6 Howa’s. Cut Atleast one coil off the trigger spring a half coil at a time. Somewhere around 1-1.5 coils you will have a great trigger. Put it in a Krg bravo or bell and Carlson. There is a company that makes a two piece bolt together bolt handle (can’t think of the name). If you want to update the scope base egw is the way to go. As for bipod go with a pic rail adapter. You can get a pic rail for a B&C stock. If it’s a later model and you want to customize it a little have a gunsmith true the receiver face with the factory barrel. They have pretty good barrels. I have two with handloads that will shoot .6-.75 moa. I’ve also got an early .308 that couldn’t hit a barn if you were standing inside. It currently wears a Krieger.

 

[CavReconScout]

This is one of my 6.5 Creedmoor Howa HCRs. I used it for matches a couple years ago, and then turned it into a hunting rifle. Timney trigger, HRD Arca rail, XLR buttstock. It’s extremely accurate, and I have shot it out to 1100yds.

This is a 6mm Creedmoor Howa (Brownells barreled action) in a MDT ACC chassis. Also extremely accurate, this was shot last year at the Accuracy Indiana match out to a mile. Nothing wrong with a Howa, IMHO, go shoot yours a bunch. When it starts to limit you then upgrade it.

 

[Snoprokf]

Here's a 1500 in a grs stock. Ptg bottom metal to accept aics mags, Timney trigger, threaded bolt handle by lri, wiebad stock pad, area 419 goodies sprinkled about. Great shooter. The atlas bipod has treated me well. Definitely go arca setup!

 

[DEEPCREEKTAC]

Disclaimer- I may have owned guns for a long time, but I still consider myself a novice at precision/distance shooting now that I found this forum. So my wording and knowledge may be slightly inaccurate.

Just wanted to update y'all, I was able to get out and shoot the previous weekend. I plan on keeping it mostly in its an original format like a lot of you have suggested, there will be a couple minor changes. First change will be the bipod, will be getting something more rigid, not a fan of the cant side to side. Second will be to switch it back to be able to run the detachable magazine, plus purchase a couple more magazines.

My scope needed to be rezero'd because I took it off to mount the DA brake. I unfortunately wasn't able to get it zero'd all the way, wind was so bad that it blew my paper target out of the stand. Luckily, by that time I was just working on my left/right adjustment so I was able to shoot at some steel and notice my impact differences. Unfortunately however my scope windage knob must need retightened (with the set screws) because I kept turning and my impact never moved.
Going to try to explain this the best I can, hopefully somebody will get it. I held my crosshair to the right of the target so that my first windage dot to the left of my crosshairs inside my scope was where my bullets impacted.

Ammo used was Australian Outback (ADI) 168gr HPBT Sierra Matchking, haven't measure the grouping, but I would eyeball it at 1.5" grouping. I call that a pretty good grouping for myself because of the conditions of my setup for shooting. Cold, windy, sitting sideways on a picnic table, with my canty bipod and no rear bag.

I ran it with the DA brake only, no can, and it was very soft shooting, pleasantly surprised actually, so very happy with that. The trigger was good enough for me, at my current distance (100 yards) so I won't be switching it until needed. The bolt felt like it was easy to manipulate currently, so will wait on that as well. Chassis can wait because I may as well spend it on ammo, plus I want to wear the paint off the hogue stock by shooting it.

Any thoughts, opinions, suggestions are appreciated.

 

[rico4prez007]

I would go back to the drawing board. Shoot on a day where the condition are almost perfect. Remount and rezero your scope. Make sure you torque them down to specs. Check your picatinny rail, I would locktite your rail aswell.
Foucs on that 100 yard zero. Boresight, make sure you use, what you need in order to have the most stable platform for your zero 3-5 shot group. Bench rest, prone on a bipod, bag, etc.
Point of aim point of impact. Your 1.5 in group was probably due to how you were sitting (sideways) and your rifle setup. This is also the time to try different ammo. I would stay on paper until, you can achieve a sub moa group at 100 yards.

 

[Hoot owl hollow Dan]

I too am a novice as you say to the world of precision rifles although I've had guns for quite some time my self.

I'm learning from others and their advice to you on your howa along with other howa1500 threads but I want to say I'm another +1 for a krg bravo stock when it comes time to upgrade.

A friend gave me this rifle he nicknamed Tex
.
Which came with all the krg upgrades from legacy

I've only done the "factory break-in " and about another 100rds down the barrel that I've hand loaded . I'm still in the 1 moa range of accuracy my self. Definitely going to do the trigger spring mods others have suggested to you on my rifle. As to me the trigger seems a bit heavy (3-4 lbs?)

 

[stanley_white]

I cut 3/4 of a coil off my HACT trigger and it is now at 2.2lbs, which is perfect for me.

-Stan

 

[Hoot owl hollow Dan]

I noted you said you were going to replace your bi-pod because you didn't like the cant feature.

It appears we have the same Harris S series of bi-pod.

I upgraded mine years ago with a locking leaver to easily increase or decrease the tension allowing cant might be a option for you as well. Sorry can't recall the brand of the product though.

If mine looks strange it's been also installed on a krg pic mount which mounts the bi-pod farther forward and closer to the barrel