Initial field report on my new Howa mini (kind of long post)

[grayfox]

Got my Howa-mini rig back from my smitty this afternoon. Shooting, feeding, ejection, all the mag/cartridge functions are now good. He said he took the inletting in an extra 0.025" (from stock), so now that's all good, mag feeds great.

Question however for the horde, he expressed some concern over the 50-55 in-lbs torque spec that I found in the manual, since the bottom piece is plastic and the mag is plastic. Keep in mind this is with the boyd's stock b/c only the action was available for me to get...
He put the screws to 25 in-lb.

1. Can we confirm that spec for the action screws at 50-55 in-lb?
2. Or what kind of torque on the bottom screws are guys using?
3. What sort of problems would I be looking at with torque that is below the 50-55?

thanks.

[xlcc]

I just tighten the guard screws up by hand until they feel firm.I do the same thing with my motorcycle bolts.Works for me.

[grayfox]

I've been doing some reading on Algore's amazing interweb... several talked about making them tight/snug without any torque. Some talked about 20-30 in-lbs.
One guy wrote up that 60 was way too much, despite all the rumors.
I now have them at 30 in-lbs, won't be going any tighter, think I'll stay in the 25-30 range.
And start my load chronos and load workups to see what it really likes.
Thanks for the feedback.