Howa 1500 Varmint 20" .243

[neutron_bomb]

I have done a lot of reading about this subject and it eould appear that the answer is not as much as you may think.
Shooting times did some tests taking a rfa quadlock 24" barrel and slwly reducing its length to 18".
The conclusion was, starting with 150gr sierra match king doing 2905 fps reducing the length to 18" and using the same load gave 2748 fps, a loss of 157 fps.
There are many other studies posted on the internet which say basically the same.

[hogey]

I have done a lot of reading about this subject and it eould appear that the answer is not as much as you may think.
Shooting times did some tests taking a rfa quadlock 24" barrel and slwly reducing its length to 18".
The conclusion was, starting with 150gr sierra match king doing 2905 fps reducing the length to 18" and using the same load gave 2748 fps, a loss of 157 fps.
There are many other studies posted on the internet which say basically the same.

thank you

[neutron_bomb]

I finally got some ammo to try out the grouping. It was only some SAKO 90gr fmj but it was all I could get.
The results were actually excellent, shooting from a couple of sand bags I managed a 4 shot group of around half an inch after I had adjusted the scope'

Pretty dammed good for factory ammo, next I will try some reloading.

[WoodyD]

I have the same gun but with a sporter barrel cut to 16 inches and found the sako 90grn very good also privy 90grn it was useless with 100grn in any make good guns though.

[neutron_bomb]

I have had very good results with sierra matchking 90 grain but the 95 grainwere absolute rubbish, would not group at all

[neutron_bomb]

I have just fitted a boyd thumbhole stock (thanks wee beastie) may not improve the shooting but it does look good.
the gun is shooting very well, using 90 grain sierra matchking I am consistently shooting sub half inch groups at 50 metres and that is moa from a stock gun, I am very happy

[neutron_bomb]

Took the Howa to the range yesterday, at 50 metres from a sandbag the best group was 0.34 inches with five shots and I pulled one shot, the remaining four went into a 0.2 inch group, measuring centre to centre of holes.

I was using nossler 90 grain spizer point boat tail and 40.0 grains of N160.

I really really like this gun.