I just picked one of thes up in a trade deal..Vanguard model.....is this the Howa action...are they any good interms of quality and reliability....what is barrel life like,are they easily shot out.....what would be an average round count with regular factory ammo per say....I realize these are pretty broad questions..but any help and opnions would be excellent.thanks very much

Bob

The Howa will stand up as well as any other rifle in .25-06.....they are generally conceded as fine guns

have never had a howa in any of it's incarnations but am desperately wanting to build a 270 wby mag on one. in "bolt action rifles" by de haas he covers them under mossberg and S&W (my edition predates legacy sports) as well as the vanguard in its own section and he just raved abt the action as well as the accuracy of the rifle.

there were some aspects of the howa he didn't like regarding the bolt shroud and oddly, not long after getting this book wby recalled the vanguards to fix something related to the bolt shroud so i assume the new mfg ones are OK. i don't think was a safety issue as much as just something needed redesign. used to be on weatherby's site at one time.

as soon as i run across any howa at a decent price for cannibalization w/ a magnum bolt face i'm grabbing it.

this action, btw, has been around for 30yrs or so basically unchanged and marketed under many names so has a good track history. the vanguard i know has been around since i was a kid.

Vanguards are considered very good guns. The recall was because of a design problem. It seemed that if you took the bolt apart and didn't put it back together right, the firing pin might slip. Call Weatherby and they will send you a box to ship your bolt to them so it can be fixed for free.

I have one that started as a .338 Win that I rechambered in .257 Wby. I really like this gun.

One of the most amazing shots I ever saw was with one. Weatherby had just come out with it and my friend Joe just had to have a Weatherby.
Back to the story; we were out doing some varminting and scouting deer and had stopped to have a cup of coffee out of my thermos. I was idly glassing the slope across the valley and a brook from our vantage point and spied a chuck way out there. After some negotiating about the wager, he settled into a solid rest while I watched thrugh the glasses. At the shot, the chuck did a somersalt and never moved again. We had no idea what the actual range was and pacing it was not posible because of the woods at the bottom of the valley, but we located the spot where he died and later, on a high resolution IGY map, found the range to be a little over 700 meters. Wow. (Cost me dinner for two.)