01-23-2021, 10:11 PM
tdbru Wrote:SC,
you may be right. these are made in JAPAN. JAPAN has draconian gun control laws. no one can have them. own them. shoot them. so of course they're clueless about features that work or don't work. they were probably told "here's what we want (small bolt action. these calibers. detachable mag.) and it has to hit this price point $". So, they probably did what they thought was reasonable given the requirement constraints and the fact that they have no experience whatsoever with actually using a rifle. it could also be that all the features we all want probably didn't hit the price point that legacy requested of howa. or a combinations of all of the above. and i could be wrong too. but this seems to explain why they just don't seem to "get it".
-tdbru
Something to keep in mind is that in 1972 Weatherby contract Howa of Japan to manufacture its rifles. This continued until mid 1990's for Weatherby's Mark V. The Weatherby Vanguard (barrelled action) is still being produced by Howa in Japan.
Long and short is Howa is focused on Weatherby's product, and anything that comes out under Howa is secondary in production efforts. Also, having worked for Japanese owned company, their mindset on somethings is rigid... not everything done in Japan has the radical fresh start as their automotive industry.
Has anyone compared the Weatherby Vanguard, which is most likely similar to standard Howa 1500