Originally Posted by bigbulls

Do you have any actual experience with the Weatherby vanguard / Howa 1500 (Howa makes the vanguard for Weatherby)? Because you you couldn't be more off base with that statement if you were standing on the moon. Remington, Savage, and Marlin should aspire to make their rifles with Howa's quality.

The vanguard/Howa 1500 is one of the strongest action in production today. In 2000, Howa also acquired the ISO 9001 certification.

The receiver is a forged steel flat bottom piece and incorperates a massive tapered recoil lug machined into the bottom of the reciever while the other three use a washer type of recoil lug sandwiched between the barrel and receiver.

The vanguard uses a one piece forged two lug bolt....... which means it isn't a casting, there are no pinned or brazed on bolt handles like with the other three, no pinned on bolt heads like with the Savage and Marlin, or anything of the sort. Just solid steel.

The bolt body is ventelated to expel gasses away from the shooter in the event of a case or primer rupture. The bolt face also completely encompases the cartridge head just like the Remington does.

The extractor is m16 style and is one of the strongest and robust extractors available aside from a mauser style claw extractor.

The barrel is hammer forged.

The bottom metal (trigger guard, floor plate) is actually made of metal instead of plastic. The trigger guard is aluminum and the floor plate is steel.