Henry loading gate

[KWK]

So, I've been leaning towards a Henry of late.

I was in Virginia last month and visited Taylor's while there, giving me a chance to handle a few Uberti. QC at Uberti has improved over the years, I see, but has a way to go. I was dismayed to find the recesses in the receiver for the screw heads were often oval instead of round. The loading gate operated smoothly, though, just run the follower up with your thumb and twist the sleeve open.

Yesterday, I had a chance to inspect two HRA "Original" at separate gun shops. All the screw recesses were round, but the gates were a pill to open. Once the follower was all the way up, I had to wiggle and press hard the follower, and with enough of this the follower seemed to snap just a little deeper into the sleeve, allowing it to rotate. I wrote to HRA and they recommend getting a running start with the follower to get it to seat in the sleeve. What's up their sleeve, so to speak?

In the Uberti and HRA drawings, I see there is a sleeve latch. The two makers implement this differently. Could this be what I was feeling?

[Abilene]

I have handled a few Uberti Henrys that required some effort to push the follower up that last little bit to unlatch the sleeve.  Maybe it varies from one gun to the next?

[KWK]

Okay, my son and I have some possible explanations for this.

The HRA is made more like the originals; the Uberti adds a "sleeve tube" which acts as a guide for the sleeve latch rod. This should, I think, permit a relatively loose fit of the rod, making it less likely to bind, which in turn should allow them to use a weaker latch rod spring. I probably didn't even notice the follower depressing the latch rod spring in the Uberti.

I sure did with the HRA. My wiggling the HRA's follower may have worked free a slightly binding latch rod. That binding could be a burr on the inside end of the channel in which the latch rod slides, or perhaps the rod needed to be better polished. We noticed the action and the magazine channel of one of the two HRA was well dusted with what appeared to be polishing compound, so maybe some of that was up in the latch rod's channel. Another possibility is the sleeve latch's index was too tall or wide, keeping it from easily retracting fully from the sight collar, or maybe the corner of the notch for the index should have been rounded. Pity I'm now 200 miles away from those rifles and can't (readily) inspect them again.

One thing I didn't notice when inspecting the two HRA, is how far from the originals the shape of the top of the receiver is as compared to the Uberti. One can see this here:



The fit of the side plates is much better in the HRA.

Pluses and minuses...

[Cliff Fendley]

I've noticed the same thing with Henry Original rifles. One at our local gun shop right now requires some jiggling to get it to unlatch and turn.