Howa 1500 in 7mm stw

[andym79]

Hi

Has anyone used this action to build a 7mm STW ? Is the action long enough to handle the 8mm Rem Case?

Would one in 300 win mag have a long enough magazine/bolt movement for the 7mm stw being 1/3" longer?

[juano86]

The action and length would handle it, the struggle will be magazine feeding. Even with a box mag, you'll probably have to seat the projectiles deep which would be impacting on case capacity. You would be confined to single feeding if you wanted to seat projectiles out near the lands.
The STW's is an epic cartridge, but there are other overbore 7mm's around: eg 28 Nosler, 7mm RUM, 7mm weatherby mag to name a few which are factory chamberings). Or, you could wildcat 7mm-300WM / 7mm-375 Ruger which have ballistics similar to the STW with a shorter COAL.

Whats the application / need for the STW?

[tophet1]

Try and find a Weatherby Vanguard in .300 weatherby as a start. The magazine should be long enough.

[juano86]

I think the internal mag length of the howa long action is 92mm (3.622"). Using heavy for caliber projectiles in the STW you'll be looking at a COAL of up to 3.810"+ with anything 175gr+ which would rule magazine feeding out. Would still be a more than suitable action for single feeding though.

[SCJ429]

Isn't the Howa 1500 a copy of the Sako L61R action which was chambered in 375H&H?

[marksman]

the golden bear was howas sako copy in the 60's that they got sued for and stopped production on
the 1500 came after
from another source

Howa presented the Howa Golden Bear bolt action rifle at the Chicago Shot Show in 1967. Approximately 3000 golden bear rifles were exported to U.S.A and passed all the tests at HP White Laboratory, which is one of the world’s most prestigious firearms testing laboratories.
After the introduction of the rifle, Howa won the fame and acceptance in the U.S market.

※Golden Bear rifle
[​IMG]
As most Sako enthusiast are aware, the "Golden Bear" was an almost exact copy of the Sako Finnbear. A very few features differed (mainly the Golden Bear's aluminum bottom metal), but they were so close that even the bolts would exchange. The Golden Bear was distributed only for a couple of years in the late 1960's, and I had no idea how many of them were sold until finding this article. All were chambered for .30-06 except for a very small handful on a slightly shorter action which were in .308. Conventional wisdom is that Sako sued Howa for patent infringements which stopped the production and sale of the Golden Bear (While I don't doubt that this is true I've never seen any documentation of this and an email I sent several years ago to Howa got an indignant response that they would never copy anyone's design!)


A little further down in the Howa firearms history is found this on the Model 1500:

1979: Howa started to export Howa Model 1500 which was based on the successful Golden Bear rifle.

※M1500
[​IMG]

There are some similarities in the 1500 and the Sako L-series, but they are not close enough to be siblings -- maybe second cousins. Several small parts from the 1500 will interchange with L-series Sakos. IIRC, the first of these were sold under the Smith & Wesson brand (replacing the Husqvarnas which S&W marketed earlier.) They are now marketed as Weatherby Vanguard and under the Howa label itself.

It was gratifying to learn a little more about the scarce Golden Bear and its history. I've owned a couple of them and found that they were of fairly high quality, perhaps not as high as a genuine Sako but a notch above the typical hunting rifle from most American manufacturers.

[SCJ429]

Thanks for that, interesting information, I always wanted to see a L61 next to the Howa to compare them. I will have to look out for the Golden Bear.

[andym79]

But will a Howa 1500 in 300 win mag have a magazine length long enough for something like a 7mm STW or 375h&h?

The 300 win mag is nearer to a long action than a magnum one, a wide 30-06 basically.

[marksman]

I am no 7mm stw expert what is your coal?
but I would say that the 7mm stw may be a bit short in the howa 300wm 91mm internal mag length

you probably would be better off with a mag action though as I can see problems when loading vld bullets or high bc bullets
unless you went for lighter bullets and a short freebore
IMO you probably could get the action milled to extract a bit more mag length but it would end up costing what a custom action would
I like the idea of using the howa and it would be for long range shooting so I myself would be happy with it as a single shot
but each to there own, good luck with it