ORIGINAL: ShatoDavis
Howa makes an excellent action.
They actually manufactured Weatherby's action for awhile. I'm not sure if they still do or not.
They are very accurate weapons.
The metric thing is kind of a hassle if you ever want to rebarrel the action as mention previously.
howa manufacture the weatherby vanguards on roy's behalf. in fact, the vanguard action is basically a modified version of the howa action. and for those who can remember back to the early 80's, what is now called howa used to be the Smith and Wesson action. not sure, but i think the whole thing is a copy of the old Sako action from early 70's.
anyway, the howa's are a naturally very accurate set-up, ata good price. you could do a lot worse.