Howa M1500 Mini Fence Line 7.62x39mm 22" Rifle

The Howa M1500 Mini Fence Line is a bolt action rifle chambered in 7.62x39mm with a 22" barrel. It comes out of Howa's Mini line, the compact end of the M1500 family, and the Fence Line name tells you the job it was named for: a working rifle that lives behind a truck seat and gets carried along property lines. Howa has been building M1500 barreled actions for decades, including actions that other rifle makers stock and sell under their own names, and the platform has a long reputation among people who buy a rifle to use rather than to admire.

The 7.62x39mm chambering is the interesting part of this one. Recoil is mild, ammunition is common and easy to find, and the cartridge carries enough weight for hogs and coyotes inside a couple hundred yards. Running the round in a bolt gun rather than a semi auto tends to squeeze better accuracy out of it than most shooters expect, since a bolt gun is not fighting the timing and gas that a self loader has to live with. That combination of short cartridge, compact action, and easy practice ammunition is what makes a rifle like this get used instead of stored. Put an optic on it, zero at a hundred yards, and it earns its keep on a working property.