I don't own a Howa rifle but I have read about magazine problems. I don't know about Howa 1100 mags but the Howa Mini-Action (1500 series ?) magazines in 7.62X39 Soviet are reportedly problematical and seem to be unavailable.

I too would be happy if I had spare magazines, even happier if they were free.

 

I have a Howa I just purchased on Saturday, and yes they definitely have Magazine issues. No they didn't offer much help on this matter, even said mags were out of stock and asked if I took a piece of Steel wool to the top of the mag to resolve the issue. Kind of disappointed being I could have purchased a savage for half the cost.

 

I bought 3 in a 2 week span, if I carefully load the mags, I have no issues, I had 2 mis-feeds out of about 4500 rounds between them. I like the rifles a lot

 

Some years back, I was at a gun show in South Carolina and on a table in a dark area of the facility (might have been a Shrine Club, can't remember) there was a compact rifle which caught my eye. It was a Howa mini action in 7.62X39 Soviet and it had been "camouflaged" by someone using what appeared to be house paint. It was absolutely covered in thick paint, including the stock, action and barrel. It had some sort of a scope on it but I can't recall what the scope was but I seem to recall that it was a cheap scope. The price would have been reasonable if it had not been "bubba'ed", but I just could not bring myself to buy it because I was afraid the gallon or two of paint covered some major problem. I enjoy a project but I was afraid of getting snake bit.

At the time and to this day, I thought it was a shame to deface a nice rifle. I would probably be a Howa owner today if the situation had been different.

 

I waited close to 6-8 months for mine first two, then another one showed up a week later

 

When my Howa 1100, .22LR was delivered it was very poorly wrapped---no big deal. It came with 2 mags, but they were for the 1500 centerfire rifles and the manual was for the 1500, so I called Legacy about it and they mailed me 2 .22 LR mags and the manual for the 1100--no big deal. Now I see the 2 mags, both for .22 LR, are different. I have attached a photo showing the difference. The mag on the right has an opening in the top of it and the one on the left has that opening filled in (very nicely) with plastic. Otherwise the 2 mags are identical. The guns is still at the gunsmith so I have not been able to shoot it as yet to see if there is a functional difference.

 

Both of my Mags for my Howa 1100 are open U shape on the front.

 

Further to my previous post: These openings, one filled in and one not, are in the top front of the mags under where the bullet would enter the chamber. I am wondering if this might be some sort of indication of a transition/modification to deal with the bullet feeding problem???

 

You made me go check, all of mine have the U shaped opening on the front of the mag

 

I checked with a friend who has a new Howa 1100 also. His 2 mags are like yours and one of mine, meaning open. I will test the operation of the closed mag when I get my gun back from the gunsmith and post about it.

 

What did you figure out?

 

Interesting difference, wonder why??

 

I assume that customer service will not admit to knowing about problems with feeding or any other possible defects, but in fact are aware of them, and that whoever makes the mags is trying to figure out a solution before sales really suffer. Maybe this one mag with the space filled in is such a possible solution, or maybe it is similar to a sprue that should have been removed by CS but was not due to poor quality control? I am hoping for some enlightenment when I get the gun up and running.

 

Had feeding issues since day 1, sent it back for repair, took 7 months to get rifle back and I still have the same issue. Howa might have a good rifle but I will never know as I don’t want to irritate myself with misfeeds all the time. Maybe user error, maybe it’s just a really bad product they keep pumping out to ruin their name 🤷‍♂️

This will be my only purchase with Howa. I buy guns to shoot to relieve stress, not create more.

 

I have a very early serial number as in the 50’s of production. I made them aware of what it takes to make them reliable from the get go.
Pillar bedding is a no list if torqued beyond 15 inch pounds and the nose of bullet leaves magazine nose low. I filed seam lines and front of mag well to make mine feed reliably with all buy Eley’s Match nose profile. They like Eley more than SK or Lapua but shoot very well with a good lot of CCI Standard.
I had no problem shooting sub MOA at 100 yard the first day of shooting after trigger work and Mag functioning attended to.

 

Lonny, We could be related. As a retired AF colonel and a genuine member of the Half-Century Wireless Association*, we have much in common. My radio collection got to 12 full HF stations, but I’m down to one radio, here at 6,000 feet ASL. My undergrad career started in EE, but ended up in marketing. College didn’t allow me to solder !! Please reply and come to Denver for coffee !! Dave Dr. David Palmer K1SIW * Ask me how to join.

 

Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten about this while the Howa was at the gunsmith waiting 3 months for parts for the new sight.

I did some work with the mags today and there are definitely problems with the "open U" type mags, or at least with mine. More specifically, I have 4 mags, 1 is the "closed U" type, and 3 of the "open U" type. I tried the closed U type first, 6 times, and no problems at all. The open U were different. I tried each 6 times: Open U mag #1 failed to feed the last round and jammed all 6 of 6 tries. Open U mag #2 worked fine 5 of 6 tries, jammed and failed to fire the last round once of 6 tries. Open U mag also failed to load/fire the last round 1 time out of 6 tries. In the first course of testing I made no special effort to work the bolt smoothly, be sure not to short stroke, etc. After the first round I have described, I tried Open U mag #1 again, being very careful to work the bolt smoothly and fully stroke the bolt--it failed 2 times out of 4. The bolt operation on the Howa is not very smooth in any event. Other than the failure to feed/fire the last round, all the mags worked as they should. All of this testing was done with Tac 22, which in my experience will feed in just about anything. This problem with the open U mags is not acceptable in my opinion.

So, I am going to take the mags apart to see if there is a spring reversal situation causing these problems. If that does not help, I am going to contact the distributor again and see if I can exchange the open U mags for the closed U variety. I will post the results of that.

 

Most of my issues were fixed after following the steps in this video .

Now the feed is smooth and only one of my four mags has problems. with the one mag the last round stove pipes and will not chamber.