Need Ideas On Rebarreling A Howa Rifle

I have a Howa 1500 rifle in 204 Ruger. Problems I have with this rifle;
* Key-holing
* Magazine well is so short/small that the bullets cannot be seated even remotely close to the lands.
* Excessively large chamber. I shot some new brass out of the rifle recently and went to re-size it for the FIRST time and found that the chamber is so large that it took an enormous amount of force to re-size the brass.

In short, I'd like to just buy an after-market barrel, that has been chambered on the low, or small, side of SAAMI specs, and have a short lead, or throat, so that I can fit rounds in the mag and be close to the lands. I know I should just sell the rifle and start over but I'd feel guilty selling this rifle to anyone. I own it, and I'd like to invest at least a new barrel to fix the problems.

What I'm looking for-a chambered, threaded (BOTH ends-as I want to shoot suppressed) barrel that is ready to just thread on to my action.

Go with the Howage conversation Mcgowen just came out with it. You could swap barrels just like savage. If you want a shouldered barrel keep in mind it's metric and a lot of smiths won't do em. Best guy in the country in my opinion is Clint with West Texas Customs in Ackerly, Tx. He built a 260 Rem on a Howa before he got his claymore action and its so accurate it's boring. I'd spin up a 6x45 on that action personally with a 1-8 or 1-8.5" and run the 87 vmax.

Also been experimenting with subs in 6x45 in a gas gun and am really considering a bolt one for suppressed.

I'll second the 6x45 suggestion. I love mine. 85gr SGKs go out at 2705 FPS with very mild recoil. It's my go everywhere rifle.

Thanks for the ideas. Had not considered swapping calibers-just want to get the gun to a point that it will shoot. I will look into the 6 x 45..

A decent gunsmith can pull that barrel, face it, rechamber it, and make the threads correspond.

If you wanted to keep that cartridge and barrel.