I've owned two, the first in .223 calibre and now one in .308
The .223 was one of the early Howas and suffered terribly due to the rubbish hogue stock and heavy trigger.
I had the action bedded into the stock and the trigger reworked and it transformed the rifle into a 'proper shooter'.
I've just recently bought the .308 and completely stripped it down. I'm impressed with the solid engineering, and noted that where other supposed top end manufacturers are using plastic, howa is using metal.
The new mk11 trigger is a huge improvement over the old version, and actually for a factory trigger really quite nice to use.. . The new version of the hogue stock is also a huge improvement, and with a bit of fettling should be perfectly serviceable.
I was going to finish by saying "they are great rifles for the money" but the truth of it is they're just great rifles.