Howa Superlite 308win Field Evaluation

[Formidilosus]

Howa sent Rokslide a new 16.25” barrels Superlite for a review. It was asked if I would eval it in the same vein as normal.



Rifle: Howa Superlite in 308win with 16.25” threaded barrel.

4lbs 9.3 oz without mag, but with included pic rail-



6.2lbs as it sits- scoped and suppressed with a SWFA SS UL 2.5-10x36mm and suppressor-




The detachable mag and bottom metal (it’s plastic, stiff- but plastic) are new versions.





Initial Thoughts:

It is of course very light. There is some function and fit issues out of the box. The included pic rail is functional, but ridiculously tall.




Issues:

First and most serious is that the rifle fails to feed about 30-40% of the time regardless of what is done. The bolt rides over the rear of the cartridge in the magazine-






The cause is that the bottom “metal” is not latching/locking the magazine fully.

Without mag, magazine latch fully flush-





With magazine, and latch will not lock-




No amount of fiddling would correct it in the 30 minutes or so that I played with it.


The bedding/inlet will need to be addressed, as there is about an 1/8” of movement when tightening the front and rear action screws.

The barrel is not free floated-




And finally when running the bolt quickly, the decent, to good two-stage trigger becomes a 6-8lb single stage. This is not unusual with Howa’s Two-Stage triggers.



To be continued…..

 

[Formidilosus]

First range trip.

Took 9 rounds after boresighting to get a round on an IPSC- that’s a first. Took 13 or 14 to get the second round to hit paper.

Disassembled the rifle, reassembled with enough torque in the action screws to make it feed as well as possible.

4 rounds in just over 8 MOA.





Torqued action screws to 45-50’ish in-lbs, and swapped scopes to the Maven RS1.2- rifle won’t feed at all, but it shot better- 3.5 MOA for 8 rounds.








Rifle is being sent to be looked at. Also, a second Superlite is being bought/acquired to see what another does.



In shooting, besides feeding/function and precision: the rifle recoils and jumps less than would be expected. It’s shootable.

 

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[DJL2]

Well, that MRC doesn't look so bad by way of comparison now ;-).

I am curious to see if the inlet is borked... but, since it looks like you're gonna need to spend some time cleaning up the stock anyway, I am sure you can attend to anything that's not too significantly out of whack.

 

[TxxAgg]

Tuned in

 

[grfox92]

What about running the bolt fast stiffens up the trigger? Is it something that can be worked out or would an aftermarket trigger be a good idea for any Howa?

Sent from my SM-G990U2 using Tapatalk

 

[Veloci_Wrench]

And finally when running the bolt quickly, the decent, to good two-stage trigger becomes a 6-8lb single stage. This is not unusual with Howa’s Two-Stage triggers.

My Howa mini trigger did the same thing. What I discovered is that the sear slips with hard racking of the bolt, but there is a built-in safety mechanism that catches the sear so that the rifle does not slam fire. The leverage ratio changes, as does the sear position, so that it effectively becomes single-stage and requires more effort to release.

All this is visible from the left-hand side if you remove the barreled action from the stock and rack the bolt hard, then look through the little peep hole in the trigger body. You will see it.

I prefer two-stage triggers, but installed a Timney just in case. The Timney decent enough.

 

[mtwarden]

A 5 lb rifle—I'll watch

 

[black dawg]

One thing that I noticed with my mini action and stockys stock, was that the recess for the recoil lug was about .015 too deep. When tightening the front action screw (which goes into that recoil lug) since the bottom of the action was against the inletting, and there was a gap under the lug, it would deform the stock and pull the forend against the barrel. About .012 shim and bedding fixed mine.

 

[Formidilosus]

What about running the bolt fast stiffens up the trigger? Is it something that can be worked out or would an aftermarket trigger be a good idea for any Howa?

Sent from my SM-G990U2 using Tapatalk

@Veloci_Wrench post has it.

 

[PaulDogs]

Does running the bolt fast stiffen all howa triggers or just on the minis?


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[Jeff_Gibbons]

Following

 

[Mike 338]

Hmmm, a 5 lb. rifle that almost doesn't work. I'll take 2 please.

 

[Sun_and_Steel_77]

Form I must say this is a happy day for me when I read this thread.
I have owned five howa minis over the last several years and all but one had the trigger issue when racking briskly and it drove me nuts!

I scoured the internet thinking it was some kind of anomaly and could only find a tiny blurb about the issue in some obscure post on a New Zealand hunting forum.
I asked other owners I knew but no one would ever give me a straight answer.
I feel vindicated!
A wart on an otherwise cool little rifle, I wonder if the aftermarket triggers fix the issue?

 

[ElPollo]

@Formidilosus

They didn’t get the memo that they were supposed to provide you with an 8-twist, 223 or 22 ARC, carbon-stocked mini action that you could use to kill brown bears and dinosaurs. Howa’s marketing department whiffed on that one. Hard. Serious missed opportunity.

 

[Veloci_Wrench]

Does running the bolt fast stiffen all howa triggers or just on the minis?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

1) Pretty sure it's a fluke, not a feature. Probably fixed under warranty. 2) The Superlite is not a mini-action. It's a reduced-weight short-action.

I think all their actions use the same trigger architecture.

 

[Veloci_Wrench]

Form I must say this is a happy day for me when I read this thread.
I have owned five howa minis over the last several years and all but one had the trigger issue when racking briskly and it drove me nuts!

I scoured the internet thinking it was some kind of anomaly and could only find a tiny blurb about the issue in some obscure post on a New Zealand hunting forum.
I asked other owners I knew but no one would ever give me a straight answer.
I feel vindicated!
A wart on an otherwise cool little rifle, I wonder if the aftermarket triggers fix the issue?

My mini was fixed with a Timney. Sear never slips now.