My howa is still in the game

[Old Bob]

I was able to put some morning range time . Once zeroed , I tested using factory American gunner bulk ammo and hornady SST . It didn't like the sst much . In overall I had slightly better groups with the howa chassis for sure . I did notice the barrel is touching the facotry stock . I used dollar bill and slipped under the barrel but it was getting caught . Do you guys think if I sand em down so barrel isn't touching , maybe It could help with the accuracy ? Thanks

It wouldn't hurt to sand it some but let me tell you what I had to do.

The barrel on my Howa Mini was cockeyed in the stock when I received it. The action screws were not very tight, so I used a torque wrench to tighten them. But that was a mistake. I tightened the screws to the spec (55 inlb) that was in the user instruction/safety procedure pamphlet that came with the rifle. The rear hole in the plastic trigger guard broke at that torque. I called Legacy Sports & the lady I talked to asked a gunsmith there what the torque should be. She said the gunsmith told her, "No more than 35 inlb." They sent me a new trigger guard at no cost to me.

When I got the new trigger guard & torqued the screws to 35 inlb, the barreled action was still cockeyed in the stock. The left side of the barrel was pressed against the stock. I loosened the action screws & found there was a lot of slop between the stock & action. I placed a thick piece of cardboard between the stock & barrel & re-tightened the screws. After removing the cardboard shim, the barrel was still on the left side of the barrel channel but it wasn't touching anymore. A dollar bill would slip all the way from the tip of the stock to the action. If I left things as is, I would have to remember to use the cardboard shim every time I removed & replaced the action. Or... I could bed the action to the stock so it would be in the same place every time. I did that.

I wasn't thrilled with the plastic trigger guard so I got Oregunsmithing's aluminum bottom metal along with their lightweight composite Howa Mini stock. The heavy 20" barrel wouldn't fit in the stock! I had to sand out the barrel channel to get it to fit. That fixed the stock but I had nothing but trouble with the bottom metal magazine box trying to get it aligned in the stock so it would properly feed ammo from the magazine box. I now have Jefferson Outdoors' bottom metal which works great! Ammo feeding is slick!