Hi all this is my first post on the forum and yes I know it is on an old thread, but was just doing some reading up as I am looking at buying/building a 25 06 in the near future and was looking for info regarding howas. I have heard mixed reports about them since they started to become a mainstream in australia. the majority of the bad reports I have heard about them are from people who have little idea of how to properly set up a rifle, and some of the issues related more to the selected optics the aforementioned put atop them. like all brands out there you get good and bad depending on many factors throughout manufacture and assembly. Although I haven't looked at any howas in recent times, in the past the level of finish reflected the pricetag and was not as good as some of the other more expensive brands but was perfectly functional and practical, lets face it most of these are rifles that will get a bit of abuse in their lifetime, not a range gun which will be cared for with kid gloves.
Anyway the experiences I have had with them have been that they are a good honest shooter right out of the box and with a bit of work can be made into a very good accurate rifle with little but a bit of time and attention to detail. I have several mates who own them in all kinds of calibers and all are happy with them. The biggest complaints I have heard from friends and relatives were to do with bedding and floating of barrels in the stock(occasional interference when new between barrel and stock, easily fixed with a little sanding.) My cousin is a professional vermin shooter and has pretty much exclusively shifted to howas as his rifle fodder, and has been using them for many years. A lot of his work used to be with 17 remingtons and 22-250s and he would pretty much load as hot as he was able to thus he would replace barrels very regularly in his more expensive actions (as many as 4 or 5 barrels per year) after switching to the howas he regularly gets barrels that will outlast many of his replacement barrels, and now rather than replace barrels he just replaces rifles, as with trade in it costs about the same.
Anyway hope my first post has been useful to those out there considering one.
basically they are an economy rifle built to suit a market that can be easily modified into a very accurate rifle, they are intended to be a NO FRILLS kind of rifle designed to do the job, and they are reputed to have good barrels.