Your thoughts on the Howa 1500 as the basis for a precision medium range 223 build?
I’m partial to the Remington 700 for such purposes, but finding the price point of the Howa 1500 slightly more attractive.
Weatherby Vanguard in disguise. Go for it!!
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Thanks for the insights @elemwb, much appreciated. 
I did some digging to find Howa offers an additional action besides Short and Long -called Mini. The 223 barreled action on sale this weekend was in fact the Mini action. This had an effect on my choices of chassis systems to some extent, but nothing major since the chassis OEM I was focused on had options for Mini available.
I mulled things over for a while and did some more research. The deal killer came when I discovered the chassis system I wanted would only work with the Howa factory mags for Mini actions. On the surface that’s not really a big deal, but I have and prefer AICS mags. The barreled action came with a single mag, but additional ones were difficult to find and highly priced. I didn’t see myself getting into another mag for one specific rifle.
Bottom line: I passed on this build, but now that I’m aware of these Howa options will be keeping an eye out for something in Short action -Short uses AICS.
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Reviving a dormant thread…I am looking at Howa actions myself. Did you wind up getting one? What chamber did you get? Still .223 or did you switch.
The reason I ask about the chamber is that I had done some research and from what I read, to get the best performance etc…out of a bolt .223 factory ammo is not the best choice.
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I did not. That was a culmination of a couple Black Friday deals I passed on. The price was right on the rifle action and chassis I was looking at, but it would have been a “one off” for me requiring those Howa Mini action factory mags.
I ended up buying an MDT Oryx chassis for a 300 Blackout build based on a Remington 700 Tactical short action with 16" barrel. Unfortunately I’ve not gotten around to assembling everything yet.
On the ammo front, the plan is to eventually reload for this in keeping things as quiet as possible in the 100-200 yard range running suppressed.
Anyone wanting to make a budget precision rifle should start with the Ruger American Ranch rifle. I don’t care what it’s chambered in, it is the perfect coyote and feral hog remover.
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What makes it perfect? I am genuinely curious because I don’t know that much about bolt guns and I have a couple bolt .22lrs but want to step up in cartridge size to either a .308 or 6.5 CM.
I’ve been looking at Howa, CZ, Tikka and Savage. I never really put the Ruger in the running as I have a Ruger Precision Rimfire that is anything but precision out of the box and definitely needed some work to sharpen it up.
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Following @PFunk , I’m curious as well about building one. Thanks 
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The base model Ruger American Ranch in 5.56 NATO starts at $500, it takes AR mags, and there’s plenty of aftermarket stocks to improve its handling.
I have the base model and with generic 55-gr. loads, I can get 1MOA out of it. With 77-gr. Razorcore, it’s sub-MOA. I have a Nikon P-Tactical scope and a bipod on mine; I’ve taken a hog at 250 yards with a 75-gr. BTHP.
The Howa 1500 is chambered only in short-leade .223 Rem, it’s more expensive (generally), and there’s not a lot of aftermarket support for it.
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PFunk, Good For You! For now I can’t add to your list but agree its one heck of a precision value rifle, almost as good as my Ruger SFAR.
But to the author of this post I want to add that I too almost pulled the trigger a Howa around Black Friday. They were selling a precision 308 with US Flag motif finish. It was just under 1K with only one problem. The magazines were proprietary and very expensive, like 100 I think. That killed my enthusiasm for the Howa.
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