Thread: 6mm ARC

I thought I’d just give some initial thoughts on the Howa 6mm ARC .

This is my first Howa Mini , but have owned a number of the SA Howa 1500’s over the years .

I really like the compact action size of the Mini and that combined with the 20 inch barrel makes for a very short handy dimensioned Rifle , which is ideal for the Ute and SxS .

The varmint barrel isn’t really a varmint in my opinion, I’d rate it as a heavy standard size which isn’t a bad thing in my view because you get a little more meat in the barrel without it weighing a ton .

The action is typical new Howa and is far from smooth , but I’m sure it will smooth out as time goes by , just like all my other ones have .

I installed a metal aftermarket hinged floorplate magazine instead of the factory plastic box mag and feeding has so far been flawless for the first couple of boxes of ammo .

I have only shot the Factory 108gr ammo and I don’t know if it’s the Rifle or the Ammo but a number of times I’ve experienced a heavy bolt lift . The primers don’t look to bad and there are no extractor marks on the case head , but if I had experience that heavy bolt lift with my handloads I would have been backing of the powder charge a bit .
Initially I thought it might have had something to do with the hot temperature that I was shooting in yesterday here in Central Queensland ( don’t know how hot , but it was “ Hot “ even for here ) but I experienced a few heavy bolt lifts again this morning in the nice cool temperature at 6:00am .
The accuracy however is very good for a cheap brand new rifle with factory ammo .
So far I’ve shot 10 x 3 shot groups ( 3 shot groups because the mag holds that many and the barrel was heating up big time in the hot conditions ) and the average for those 10 groups is 21.8mm .
So the rifle straight out of box is shooting below an inch with factory ammo and that makes me happy because there’s a good chance I will be able to better that with handloads .

Before I shot the rifle I obviously cleaned the barrel and I noticed that it didn’t feel very smooth while running some patches down the tube . Maybe I’m spoilt with some of my other rifles , but it was noticeably rough and catchy .
I shot 5 rounds to get it on paper and then cleaned it with Bore Tech Carbon and Copper cleaners and used a nylon brush and patches.
The barrel was really fouled for just 5 shots and took some cleaning to get it sorted.
I shot 15 more rounds and cleaned again. Same deal it was very fouled and took some serious elbow grease to get it clean .
Another 15 rounds , same thing again but maybe not quite as bad .
I think the rifling and bore of this barrel are rough and not of great quality, but it’s a cheap rifle and it looks like it will shoot , so I’m not complaining.

Im not going to chronograph any shots just yet , because of the rough barrel I have a feeling that it will speed up anyway as it smooths out a bit after having a decent amount of bullets down the tube .

So as it is at the moment it’s all sighted in with the 108’s and I’m just going to shoot and enjoy it while I burn up the factory ammo .

So far I’m pleased I got it