Bought an MDT LSS for Howa on Black Friday back in 2018 seeing recent (at the time) prices for Howa barreled actions at a steal. Didn't necessarily think they were gonna be that cheap again but also didn't think they were going to be more expensive than a complete rifle with scope.

It seems like Brownells is the exclusive distributor of them except they don't seem to have much of a selection either. I'm specifically looking for a 308 and a year later they've actually gone up by almost $100.

Unless there's somewhere else to get them, is there any reason I shouldn't just buy a complete rifle?

You may not want to buy one after watching this:

I was looking to build, basically, the same rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor. At some point I stumbled across the Weatherby Vanguard Chassis rifle.  It is a Howa action in an MDT LSS XL chassis. So I bought that from CDNN. I realize this doesn’t help you now.

Yes, Brownells is the only distributor of barreled actions. Keep watching  their sales. They will put the 308 on sale. I think at one point they were $299 in one particular barrel length. As far as accuracy, read some posts on Snipers Hide. Howa’s seem to be held in high regard. I think the guy in the video just got a bad one.

At this point I’m kinda committed to buying one unless I want to sell the LSS and buy another one during a sale. I don’t see too many other manufactures selling barreled actions other than Remington so I’d be in the same situation now.

Overall I’ve still heard good things about Howa so maybe within the next year if there’s still nothing I’ll just buy either an action or whole rifle.

My question here is does the barreled action have any features a full rifle doesn’t?

Already listed, b ut I was also going to mention Brownells sells barreled Howa actions, and occasionally has them on sale.

Right after you buy one, then they will be on sale.

That guy is unreasonable and an idiot for wanting custom rifle accuracy for the price of a howa. Howa guarantees under 1moa not 1/2 moa or less.