08-05-2020, 08:05 PM
Oso Polaris Wrote:I wanted a light field rifle in 6.5 Grendel, and I was interested in trying out the Howa Mini so I bought barreled action from Brownells. I was unaware of the Howa Mini's issues when I made the purchase. I prefer a removable magazine and for that matter a chassis. In my opinion the magazine is a critical failure that makes the Howa Mini unreliable for field usage... I have certain expectations of my firearms. Putting the Howa Mini into a chassis ($500-$800) doesn't resolve the issue of magazine not properly feeding or the terrible location of mag release lever. As others have mentioned, these issues have kept me on the fence for past 3 years while my Howa Mini action sat in its box in my closet. Honestly, I had all but decided that best course of action was to just build a custom Grendel upper for an AR15.Amen Brutha!
The final straw that pushed me into moving forward with the Howa Mini rifle build was my niece who needed a deer rifle for the upcoming hunting season. In late Spring 2019, B&C solved one my issue with a new composite stock. I have the same Kevlar stock on a couple of CZ527's. Then DPI designed a replacement bottom metal that is actually metal. However, the magazine remains an issue whether using a traditional stock or chassis. Close but not quite a complete solution. Finally this Spring 2020, the scale was tipped in favor of a traditional style stock when replacement bottom metal with blind box magazine was introduced by Oregunsmithing and Jefferson Outdoors. This eliminated the remaining failure points for the Howa Mini.... magazine feeding reliability and accidental magazine drops from poorly designed/positioned mag release lever at front of bottom metal.
If I hadn't already owned the Howa Mini Action then I would have either purchased a CZ527 for bolt rifle or just gone straight to AR15. What a hassle... a lot of people working hard to find solutions for a product that the manufacturer can't be bothered to fix. This will be my only Howa until something changes.