Howa Barrel Woes

[proload]

Hi guys,

About a year ago, I bought a brand new Howa 243 Win with a Varmint Barrel on an Axiom Stock for my nephews to learn to shoot with ...

Since then, I have tried to develop loads with 6 different projectiles in an effort to try and find something that would group reasonably decently. Nothing holds a group in this rifle. It's been very frustrating.

Anyway, I have also noticed that the rifle is copper fouling very badly and thought I'd investigate that ... I cleaned the rifle for hours with Sweets 7.62 and got most (although not all) of the copper out, but wanted to try and see why the barrel was fouling so badly, so I put the old camera down the spout, and the attached photo shows what I found.

I'm obviously very disappointed.

Is this acceptable in a factory rifle, or is this beyond acceptable? Should I be asking for a replacement? I have other factory rifles, but they don't have bores that look anything like this.

 

[lloydsmale]

wow now thats a bad barrel! Good luck with howa. If there anything like weatherby youll be going in circles trying to get something done about it. I guess if it was mine id either trade it off or cut my losses and buy a new barrel. Ive had two weatherby vanguards. One a 257wby and the other an 06 that have had bad barrels. Niether that bad though. Howa must be slipping. they used to have a pretty good reputation for there barrels.

 

[Long Time Long Ranger]

Howa in the past was known for top quality rifles at a fair price. I built numerous rifles off their actions and kept several as is that shot great. I am sorry to hear their quality control has got that bad. They should replace that one.

As for Weatherby:

Weatherby has the best customer service of any company I have ever dealt with. They have done amazing things for me way above the call of duty. For example, a few years ago the firing pin broke on my 40 year old 338-378 Mk 5 action. It broke on the range at 6 pm while doing a final test group before going in the case for a big Alaska hunt flying out at noon the following day. I called Weatherby at 6:30 pm eastern time and had the firing pin by 9 am the next morning in time for the Alaska hunt, No Charge and they wished me a happy hunting trip. 14 hours after I called I had it. I took a 72" B&C moose, and two +400" caribou on the hunt with a borrowed 338 winchester from my air taxi buddy after Delta Airlines destroyed the 338-378 with the new firing pin. Delta did not even offer an apology.