During the ammo shortages, I found myself shooting my 22 LR guns more, especially since I had a decent stash of ammo. I’ve really enjoyed getting reacquainted w/ the 22 LR. Recently I was cruising the ‘net when I came across a review of the Howa M1100 bolt action rifle in 22 LR. When I found one at Buds for less than $300, I couldn’t resist the temptation and ordered one. Shipping was slower than usual due to the busy times.

The M1100 has a synthetic, OD green “Tactical/Varmint” style stock is synthetic and has a thick, vertical hand grip and a wide forend. There’s a small pressure point in the barrel channel at the tip of the forend. The barrel channel is a little tight along the left side. There are small lines along the length of the stock where the two halves of the stock come together. Sure, a recoil pad’s not needed on a 22 LR, but I like the thin, fairly soft recoil pad. The recoil pad helps the gun shoulder more firmly than does a plastic butt pad. The trigger guard is an integral part of the synthetic stock. There are two ling swivel studs, one at the front and one at the back. The barrel and action are both blued. The barrel is 18”long and has a fairly thin contour measuring 0.62” at the threaded muzzle. The bolt has an oversized knob. The bolt throw is only about 60 degrees. The action feels rather gritty, but functions fine. The extractor/ejector looks very similar to those on my Savage Model II 22LR. Let’s hope it works better than did my Savage until I fixed. The gun uses a 10 round plastic magazine. Thank you Howa for including two. The trigger, safety and bolt release lever are similar to those on the Model 1500 centerfire rifle. The gun has a typical two position safety without any markings to denote safe vs fire. I’ll fix that with a dab of my wife’s red nail polish on the stock. The trigger is adjustable but has a glob of glue covering the adjustment screw. My trigger broke cleanly at 3 ¼” so I’ve not adjusted it yet.

For short term use I installed a very old Tasco 2-7X air gun scope in Burris Signature Z rings atop an EGW one piece rail (not included with gun) and. After a quick cleaning of the bore I was ready to shoot. On each range trip, every load each was shot at 50 yards with 10 fouling shots followed by a single 5 round group for accuracy.

I didn’t have much time to shoot as I had an appointment at “the jumpy place” with six of my grandkids. Twenty years ago when I last shot the scope, I didn’t wear glasses, the scope was in focus and it was MUCH clearer. Although I was only shooting at 50 yards, the thick crosshairs and blurry image contributed to a number of fliers. Bottom line, given the circumstance, accuracy was very promising. The loads for the shot were CCI Standard Velocity, Norma TAC-22 and Aguila 38 gr subsonic HP.

Promising groups from the first shoot.

On the second trip I changed scopes to the 4-12X Vortex Copperhead (not parallax adjustable). I shot CCI Standard Velocity, CCI Subsonic CLEAN, Norma TAC-22 and American 45 gr Suppressor. CCI Standard Velocity and TAC-22 both shot well. Accuracy improved and fliers decreased by changing scopes. Unfortunately I had two failures to feed w/ the same magazine. I’ll need to watch out for that going forward as the spring may not have enough tension.

I’m looking forward to more range trips to try more loads. I’ll provide updates after I’ve shot some more. For now, the Howa M1100 looks like a solid 22 LR, especially for its price range.