Howa Action thread sizes

[Billo]

Thought this was worth sharing as I've not seen it publishes anywhere before. All metric to make it easy.

Howa 1500 SA & LA 26 x 1.5

Howa 1500 Super Lite 24 x 1.5

Howa 1500 Mini 22 x 1.0

Now what you do with this knowledge well thats another thread entirely

[JohnV]

It's not much of a gunsmith that can't switch his lathe to metric threads . If your going to fit a new barrel then you have to remove the old one first so then you can just measure the thread diameter and pitch . That prevents any mistakes in printed documentation . You don't cut the barrel tenon thread first before you measure the old barrel . Also you don't want a sloppy thread fit so it's best to deepen the thread a bit at a time while trying to screw the action back on . Lathes that have an instant stop foot brake and reverse are good for this as you can stop the cut dead. Dial the tool out a few thou and then reverse back away from the job to get the action in . Then dial back in to the next cut and put it in forward . No need to disengage or reengage using a thread dial which is easy to get wrong . If you only have the action then you can use documentation and confirm by measuring the action threads but still do as above to get a neat not sloppy thread fit .

[Billo]

Yeah JohnV there was no documentation on what thread pitch Howa had used on these new short actions and the only way to find out was to unscrew the barrel, tight bastard too. I was curious to see how much meat was around the chamber. The goods news is Howa have enlarged the diameter a little so the poor old 308 can be bored out a little to run bigger pistons.

[JohnV]

Some barrels can be a real bitch to get out as some are put in with hydraulic drives and some fools put armorers grout into the threads to lock them up.
I built my own heavy duty collet barrel vice . Some collets are brass and some are aluminium . They a bored to match the barrel taper on all my barrels . Bolts are M14 8.8 grade studs . I had trouble with the Brno model 2 barrel and had to use a big hammer on an external action wrench . I got nervous about bending the barrel because of the overhang so had to tom it up from the floor so the force of the heavy hammer blows did not bend anything . Next time I made a different collet that held the barrel much closer to the action and I felt better about that . I degrease the collet and the barrel section really well and use powdered rosin on a first time out barrel .

[TuskerOrd]

Thanks Billo. I'm researching the ultra light. At least I dont have to pull one apart to get the thread size.