Range report after 600 rnds fired today

[Peter M. Eick]

I went blasting today and found out that the Henry gets darn hot after about 150 rnds in 30 minutes.  Note to self, bring a glove next time!  I found that you have to run the action on mine with some vigor or you can short stroke it and get an empty in the window on top of the bolt that is now forward.  Very hard to see the sights that way!  I need to be smooth and consistent so that I hit the stops on both ends of the stroke.  No need to beat on the gun, just have to go to the full limits.  I also noted that the gun is definitely smoothing out toward the end of the day.  I bet another 600 rnd day and it will be real nice, but right now this is only at round 700 for the gun.  I found that I would occasionally forget about the "Henry hop" shooting off the bench but sitting it was not an issue. 

My goal today was to adjust the sights.  I started out about 3" low left on the 50 and found that I had to really move the sight over get on the center of the target.  I don't like the look of it and I suspect that I am canting the rifle and that may be most of the reason I am over so far.  On the vertical plane I am about 3" low with the sight down at 50 but with the sight up and putting just a tad of the front sight in the bottom of the V I am right in the middle with a normal bulls-eye target picture.  My best 13 shot group was about 2" from the sitting position.  I know I can do better but it was about 90 today and the heat was putting sweat in the eyes.

The actual shooting was fun.  Virtually no recoil and very easy to shoot if you remember about the follower.  I have to say that I am having so much fun with this one, I am going to have to get another.  I am currently leaning toward an steel iron frame again because I just my only exposure to a real Henry was an Iron framed one.

Cleanup was a breeze with Mpro7 and some Hoppes oil.  It did take a while to get all of the brown stuff out of the ammo magazine tube.  I am not sure if I forgot to oil it (very much doubt it) or if the oil is just bringing the brown tarnish out of the tube.

No failures to feed or fire.  The load was pretty darn mild with 6.5 grns of Trailboss and a 200 grn Lasercast FP.  No sign of leading in the barrel.

My plans this week are to load up all 600 of the cases with the same load and then move back to the 100 yrd range next week.  I expect that I will do a bit better at that range on getting the elevation right.

Final thought.  The Henry Iron Frame in 44-40 sure draws a crowd at the range.  There must have been 10 car-15's of various types on the 50 with red dots and scopes, but folks stopped and watched me plink away with the Henry from sitting.  Especially when i was blasting and dirt clods and when I started to drill my own cave.  Those 200 grn'ers make a heck of a "fwack" when they smack the berm.

Sorry no pictures this week.  I plum forgot the camera.

[Dirty Brass]

Sound's like you had a great day shooting! 600 out of a lever gun is a good days workout. I read this with excitement 'cause I just picked up a Navy Arms 1860 recently in 44-40 and haven't put a round through it yet, so anything I can read on them is of great interest to me. Thanks for the nice write-up and report

Oh - I have shot my '66 YB in 44-40, and like you say, the 200 grainers whack the burm pretty nice with repetition. 

[Ransom Gaer]

Interesting report.  You should see how hot the barrel gets with BP and that's after only ten rounds.  With BP you would find you'd need to clean it more otherwise accuracy would suffer.  I have found my Henry to be amazingly accurate shooting longrange with it.

I currently have a brass Henry in .45 Colt.  I want to get an Iron Frame and I will get it in .44-40.  Anything a bit unusual at the range will draw attention.  I have shot C&B pistols at a range in Denver where everybody else was shooting 9mm or 1911's and they always draw attention.  I brought my Henry to the same range once and it drew attention too.

Ransom Gaer

[Steel Horse Bailey]

If you shot that much BP in one 2-3 hour period, the barrel would probably glow a real pretty red!

[Henry4440]

If you shot that much BP in one 2-3 hour period, the barrel would probably glow a real pretty red!

600 in 2 hours?
That means continuously all 12 sec. a shot.

I think the barrel will glow bright red.

[Peter M. Eick]

No, it just gets warm enough that your hands get hot.

After thinking about this a bit, and rereading the above comments, I realized you guys were talking about black powder and I was shooting trailboss (smokeless) powder. 

Does black powder really run that much hotter then smokeless?

[Will Ketchum]

No, it just gets warm enough that your hands get hot.

After thinking about this a bit, and rereading the above comments, I realized you guys were talking about black powder and I was shooting trailboss (smokeless) powder. 

Does black powder really run that much hotter then smokeless?

Oh Yea!!!  15 fast shots out of a Henry will burn your hand before you can get to the unloading table.

Will Ketchum

[Ransom Gaer]

YES blackpowder is that much hotter than smokeyless.

I have found that only ten are necessary to get the barrel really hot.  To the point where it is literally too hot to hold.  Ambient air temperature aggravates this.  On a day in the 80's it takes a little while to heat things up.  Once into the 90's the barrel gets hot real fast.  That's why I wear a glove while shootin' my Henry.

Ransom Gaer

[Driftwood Johnson]

Oh yeah, it gets hot.

In the summer time I never go to the firing line without a leather glove on my left hand. I don't want a glove on my right hand when shooting. The Michael Jackson jokes have pretty much stopped now, everybody is used to me wearing one glove. If the temperature is in the 90s, my Henry will be too hot to hold the barrel after 10 shots. My '73 has wood to grab, the Henry does not. It takes a little bit of time for the heat to soak through from the bore to the outside of the barrel, it is usually the hottest as I leave the unloading table and carry it to my cart. My shotgun on the other hand gets hot instantly. Shotgun barrel steel is much thinner than rifle barrel steel and the heat takes no time to migrate from the bores to the outside. After 6 quick shots with my SXS I cannot grab the steel without burning my hand. The shotgun has a tiny splinter fore stock, so I used to even burn my hand just shooting it, if the tips of my fingers touched the barrels. Walking back to my cart on a hot day I usually carry my shotgun in my gloved left hand and juggle the Henry in my bare right hand holding it by the wrist of the stock and pointing it straight up.