School me on lever action rifles

Squib308 said:
my henry 22 lever gun was not smooth. it cycles 22 shorts or longs fine, but most 22lr it misfed anytime the action was closed slowly. basically had to slam the action closed to prevent jams. when i called henry they said this was normal. so i got rid of that rifle.

i also had a henry lever 44 carbine steel. that was a nice rifle. loading on the henry's is a little strange but got used to it. the action on their centerfire rifles seem better than rimfire. i only sold it due to cost of ammo as i prefer putting 44 mag through a 629 than the lever gun.

i'm still in the market for a henry 357 steel carbine.

personally if looking for a real nice lever gun i agree w above go with Uberti or perhaps a Marlin if one can find in desired chambering (sorry i'm not a 30-30 fan).
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that's odd- I've never heard of a henry .22 not cycling smooth- they are known to be like "butter" smooth- both my 22lr & 22 mag golden boys are an absolute dream when cycling- never once had a mis-fire.
I'm heading up to the manchester show this saturday to hopefully find either a henry 45-70, 30-30 or a 44 mag... wish they made their new lever action 410 in brass, otherwise I'd be hunting for one of those! [wink]
 
beergut said:
that's odd- I've never heard of a henry .22 not cycling smooth- they are known to be like "butter" smooth- both my 22lr & 22 mag golden boys are an absolute dream when cycling- never once had a mis-fire.
I'm heading up to the manchester show this saturday to hopefully find either a henry 45-70, 30-30 or a 44 mag... wish they made their new lever action 410 in brass, otherwise I'd be hunting for one of those! [wink]
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lots of threads on henry forum where people having these exact feeding issues with their 22 lever guns. even nutnfancy had the same issue. of course henry replaced his gun with a new one. mine they said was "perfectly normal". either way they make some OK guns but I have also seen several of their rifles that are straight up lemons. my guess is that you got some properly built 22 rifles, so hold on to them. i'm pretty sure the issue with mine was the little elevator tab that pops the round upward. it was either out of sync with the action or pushing the round too high.

separate issue but the Henry fanboy business is out of control. the whole "made in american or not made at all" motto apparently allows them to get away with some shotty QC.
 
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amm5061 said:
Honestly, I see that as more dangerous if you have to unload than levering them all out since you've got one in the chamber with your hand potentially in front of the muzzle trying to twist open the spring tube. Faster, yes, but I think in that situation I would still crank them out the ejection port.
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If you don't trust the transfer bar safety and the fact that your finger is nowhere near the trigger, and you can't extend the tube without muzzling your hand (it's really not that hard if you have the need), you can just lever out the one in the chamber, dump the one on the carrier, and leave the action open while you dump the rounds out of the magazine. If the one on the carrier doesn't fall out easily, just leave it while you unload the tube, then cycle just that one out.

I respect having a preference for any reason or no reasons at all, but having both, and having a lot of experience with both, the arguments on both sides seem kind of weak to me. I personally don't think anybody should be persuaded by them if they don't already have a preference that they're looking for an argument to support. The way they load is never a factor in deciding which one I want to shoot. Never. There are more important distinctions, like do I need to wear a brimmed hat to keep the ejected casings from hitting me in the head, things like that. :)
 
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beergut said:
that's odd- I've never heard of a henry .22 not cycling smooth- they are known to be like "butter" smooth- both my 22lr & 22 mag golden boys are an absolute dream when cycling- never once had a mis-fire.
I'm heading up to the manchester show this saturday to hopefully find either a henry 45-70, 30-30 or a 44 mag... wish they made their new lever action 410 in brass, otherwise I'd be hunting for one of those! [wink]
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I bought my Henry Big Boy 44 from grabagun for $700 shipped. My local dealer had them for $850 plus tax. Hard to spend $200 extra to support my local shop.
 
so i'm trying to decide my next range toy. i know i need a .45 pistol or lever action rifle (3 EDC's already, don't need another at this time)

I like the henry 38/357 carbine. but i saw a rossi .38/357 side loader today (which i would prefer to the tube loading henry)

it's 20% less than the henry. only saw one reference to the rossi's in this thread

comments/opinions on the rossi??? especially from those of you who have shot both
 
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I would like to start with +1 for the Uberti 1873

I have a Henry 001 .22 Lever action that i bought used. When I went to shoot it, the extractor was in rough shape and would not remove spent rounds. I called Henry, and they sent me a new extractor no questions asked. I wont defend Henry's QC, as I have never owned a new Henry (though a Big Boy is on my list) but the customer service was a great experience when there was a problem.

I think a Lever Action rifle is inherently subject to more abuse, and more so with aggressive running of the lever.


Squib308 said:
lots of threads on henry forum where people having these exact feeding issues with their 22 lever guns. even nutnfancy had the same issue. of course henry replaced his gun with a new one. mine they said was "perfectly normal". either way they make some OK guns but I have also seen several of their rifles that are straight up lemons. my guess is that you got some properly built 22 rifles, so hold on to them. i'm pretty sure the issue with mine was the little elevator tab that pops the round upward. it was either out of sync with the action or pushing the round too high.

separate issue but the Henry fanboy business is out of control. the whole "made in american or not made at all" motto apparently allows them to get away with some shotty QC.
Click to expand...
 
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I have Henry's and Marlin's.

The loading gate thing is not a big deal to me. Henry has pretty good quality on the inside,the parts are smoothed out and finished nicely, the action is slick. Mine is a Big Boy Steel 20 inch 45 LC. Which I have loaded up to Magnum charges with no issues. 250 Grain XTP going 1400 fps. Mostly I just shoot 800 fps plinkers out of it. It's a blast to shoot. If I didn't reload I would have gotten the 357.

The older JM Marlins are nice guns, but still don't run like a Henry, and finish inside is rough. The newer Remlins are getting better......

The real lever gun to me is still the Model 1873....I'd like to get one, I like the Uberti's but don't like the wood on them, it's too red looking. But a Winchester is a lot more $$$.

If your just going to buy one....Id buy the gun that won the west in 357.
 
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I went through this. After consulting a bunch of guys here I ended up with a Henry Golden boy 22. I liked it so much I ended up buying the big boy in 44 mag. Really smooth as butter.
 
Shotgun Scully said:
Now I just Need a SAA to go with it. Anybody have experience with the Ruger Vaquero?
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I have a few of them, and some Blackhawks too. They're both good guns, but I prefer the Blackhawks with the adjustable sights. The Vaqueros have fixed sights and tend to shoot low, very few are dead-on from the factory. I put free-spin pawls in all my SA Rugers, makes a huge difference when loading and unloading.

widnerkj said:
Didn't ruger make a lever action .44? I remember wanting one.
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Yes, the model 96, they were made from 1996-2009 but weren't big sellers.
They came in 17 HMR, .22LR, .22 WMR and .44 Mag. They used a rotary mag like the 10/22, but the .44 version only held 4 rounds. They go for big bucks today if you can find one.

meh said:
If you don't trust the transfer bar safety and the fact that your finger is nowhere near the trigger, and you can't extend the tube without muzzling your hand (it's really not that hard if you have the need), you can just lever out the one in the chamber, dump the one on the carrier, and leave the action open while you dump the rounds out of the magazine. If the one on the carrier doesn't fall out easily, just leave it while you unload the tube, then cycle just that one out.
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This^

northny said:
Still dream of having a lever gun in 357 Maximum.
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Dream on.
I wanted one too, but none exist.
I had to settle for a T/C Custom Shop barrel in that caliber for my Contender Carbine.

boscru said:
so i'm trying to decide my next range toy. i know i need a .45 pistol or lever action rifle (3 EDC's already, don't need another at this time)

I like the henry 38/357 carbine. but i saw a rossi .38/357 side loader today (which i would prefer to the tube loading henry)

it's 20% less than the henry. only saw one reference to the rossi's in this thread

comments/opinions on the rossi??? especially from those of you who have shot both
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Rossi QC can be hit-or-miss. I had a Puma 92 that was a total POS, lots of problems from action jamming up to case head separations. But I later got an R92 (in .44M) which works very well.
The 92 action is not very well designed for .38/.357, they tend to work well with either one or the other but not both. I have a Browning B92 which works great with .357's, but won't cycle worth a crap with .38's, they're very sensitive to case OAL. If you're going to get a 92 variant, I'd suggest a different caliber such as .44M of .45LC. My .44M works perfectly with both .44M and .44sp.
 
one thing to consider, a lot of these lever actions ARE available in "revolver" calibers. So it you were out in western MA during Bear season, you could hunt with say a .44 mag or .454 with your revolver, and have a rifle slung on your back as backup for long shots, or if you were tracking a hit bear in the brush.

I dont like hunting with two calibers of ammo in my backpack, both from weight and potential confusion standpoints
 
BigTimber said:
Ted Williams?
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I have the Rossi M92 20" bbl .357/.38spl. I bought it new, fired 50 rounds through it at the range and then brought it home to completely disassemble it. I found some youtube video showing how to clean up and lighten the action a little bit and it's a way better handling gun since then. The main thing is to put a slightly lighter ejector spring in it, and that makes a world of difference on it's own. I did do some minor deburring and polishing to the internals. There was some fairly crude machine marks in there and right below the chamber there was a rather big chunk of metal that just needed to be wiggled loose and it came out. LOL.

But now that gun is one of my favorite rifles to shoot. You can get pretty quick at whipping that lever without disturbing your sight picture too much. I reload .38spl and it's pretty cheap to blast off 200 rounds. Wish I could shoot my FAL that cheap.
 
first gun i ever purchased was a r92 in 45 colt; the action seized and i had to send it back. i purchased it through davidsons so they took care of it once i got it back i havent had any issues since
 
Big thanks to all of you guys for time and input.
I will have to decide between Uberti and Winchester. Too bad neither made in US. But I guess in case of current production levers you have to look overseas to get decent quality.
 
xero2099 said:
first gun i ever purchased was a r92 in 45 colt; the action seized and i had to send it back. i purchased it through davidsons so they took care of it once i got it back i havent had any issues since
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When you say the action seized, what exactly happened ???

Did it happen with the lever in the fully open position ???

I've seen this before, It happened to me with a Rossi Puma 92. I laid it down on a bench (on it's left side) with the action open, when I picked it up again the action wouldn't close. It took me awhile to figure out what happened, it was an internal pin through the bolt had moved to the left, and the end got caught in a grove inside the receiver. The fix was to plop the rifle back down on the bench on its right side, which caused the pin to slide back into its proper position.

I believe the pin was #56 in this diagram:

https://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?topic_id=554325
 
I actually locked up my Henry H009 30-30 after 1 round. I didn't realize it but I didn't fully lock the tube in after loading. Fired one round then when I worked the action the tube popped open and the action locked with a live round in the action (but not chambered). I was able to get the rounds in the magazine out but not the one in the action. Wound up having to
take the rifle apart to get the round out. All good since then.
 
Zappa said:
When you say the action seized, what exactly happened ???

Did it happen with the lever in the fully open position ???

I've seen this before, It happened to me with a Rossi Puma 92. I laid it down on a bench (on it's left side) with the action open, when I picked it up again the action wouldn't close. It took me awhile to figure out what happened, it was an internal pin through the bolt had moved to the left, and the end got caught in a grove inside the receiver. The fix was to plop the rifle back down on the bench on its right side, which caused the pin to slide back into its proper position.

I believe the pin was #56 in this diagram:

https://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?topic_id=554325
Click to expand...

In my case I there was no round in chamber but I could not open action


Sent from behind enemy lines using carrier pigeons
 
If one were looking at older carbines (not new production) for more collector value, where is a good place to start?
 

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