does any1 know about these guns, never heard of them being talked about much, whats everyone's view on them

Howa makes a good, solid rifle. They are the ones who make the Weatherby Vanguard.

would they be as good as the tikka or savage????

Every bit as good.

I find the howa trigger does not meet my standards, timney makes a replacement and they are on my howa's and vanguards (same gun mol). there a good solid gun well worth the money

the only thing i noticed when looking at them was the weigh alot. Same with the Weatherby. Seem to be heavier than competing rifles.

Seems like a very good rifle for the price.

I purchased the Howa Hogue combo before this season and am very happy with the gun. I did have the trigger smoothed and it breaks at 3.2lb. Accurate and feels great.
One word of advice. Just buy the gun and skip the combo that comes with the Nikko Sterling scope. To put it mildly,they suck!

Savage has Stevens


Weatherby has Howa


All excellent in their price range.

I would say that Howa has Weatherby. Howa Machinery has been in business since 1907 manufacturing all sorts of machinery, heavy equipment and Ja-panese military firearms...... long before Weatherby was in existance.

Howa has been making the model 1500 for decades. The have made the model 1500 for Smith and Wesson for the S&W 1500 and then Mossberg contracted with Howa for the Mossberg 1500. After Mossberg dropped the line Weatherby then contracted with Howa to manufacture the Vanguard rifles.

Howa has been ISO 9001 Certified since the year 2000.

The Howa 1500's are excelent rifles. Forged steel flat bottom receivers with huge integrated recoil lugs, One piece (including the handle) forged bolts, M16 extractor, three position safety, adjustable triggers, Bolt body and receiver are vented to release gasses in case of case or primer rupture, one piece bottom metal that is actually metal and not plastic.

Basically they are one of the best values in a bolt action rifle out there.