Henry Big Boy issues

[LeverLuvr]

Well, I finally got to shoot the Big Boy .357/38 today for the first time since I brought it home 3 weeks ago. My elation lasted about 30 rounds. I started with the MagTech .357 rounds. It wasn't too bad, although I wouldn't say it was smooth as butter racking it. But I figured it would smooth out after a couple of hundred rounds being new and all. After about 30 rounds, I fired it and tried to rack another round in, and the lever was jammed and I couldn't cycle out the round. It wouldn't open. I could pop the lever out of the lock position but not further. I finally, after trying to get it open, was able to muscle it open. but it was not easy. It felt like the shell was real tight in the chamber and felt like it was scraping and tight the whole way out. I shot another 10 rounds out of it and the same thing with varying degrees of difficulty. But it loaded and fired fine. I had put it away and was getting ready to leave and thought, I wonder how the 38 special rounds would do, so I got them out and loaded up 10 rounds. I popped of a few with no issues, then rapid fired the rest. loaded 10 more and did 10 more semi rapid fire and no issues. The 38 rounds cycled fine.

So I'm going to send it back to Henry for repair. I hope their service is as good as it was 10 years ago. My first big boy (44) after about 40 rounds the trigger got to where I couldn't pull it at all. It too was brand new. I sent it back and literally had it back in my hands 6 days later. I took it to the range and it was smooth and slick as Otter poop and I never had another problem with it after that. In fact it got even better with age. So while I'm not a happy camper right now, I'm optimistic it will come back in hopefully like form.

I was wondering if the guru's here might have an idea what the problem might be. Even when racking it empty it works fine but feels a little rough now.

[ollogger]

To me it sounds like some of that ammo was on the real hot side, but why it took 30 rounds to show up may have come from a dirty chamber also. have 3 Henry guns & had ammo problems with the 22 mag, blew 3 cases of that Mexican ammo but never had such problems with thousands of rounds of various other makers, needless to say the Aquila ammo got tossed
just last week I shot some factory 454 casull ammo in my Ruger Alaskan & after 2 shots fired I tried to eject them & couldn't
so had to use a wooden dowel to push them out, next day I pulled the bullets & dumped the powder & loaded up a sane load




ollogger

[fordwannabe]

Sounds ammo related to me.

[GunnyMack]

I agree it sounds ammo to me. Look at that 357 brass, I bet it is swelled towards the base. The 38 special being lower pressure won't stick like hot stuff.

As for the action feeling gritty it's possible that your trying to make if work could have raised a burr but I doubt it. Take it apart and inspect, lube and try some different ammo.

[LeverLuvr]

Sounds ammo related to me.

I agree it sounds ammo to me. Look at that 357 brass, I bet it is swelled towards the base. The 38 special being lower pressure won't stick like hot stuff.

As for the action feeling gritty it's possible that your trying to make if work could have raised a burr but I doubt it. Take it apart and inspect, lube and try some different ammo.

At this point, I'm inclined to agree that it may be the ammo. I didn't mess with it much at the range but last night I tried a couple of things. First I loaded a few .357 live rounds into it, unfired and cycled them thru with no issues. Then I tried loading in manually a couple of spent shells and they were pretty tight going in and extracting. Then I did the same with some 38 rounds and no issues. So it seemed as though the 357 shells had maybe expanded excessively. I got out my micrometer and checked the shell casings at the base, middle, and ends. The 38 shell measured .3785 inches, the 357 shell measured .3815. So it would appear the 357 shells are expanding. I guess I'll pull it apart and give it a good going thru and try some different ammo in it. Ammo is pretty dry around here right now so it might be a while before I can get some. I'll follow up on this thread with findings. One of my buddies has about 300 rounds he reloaded, I might hit him up for maybe 50 rounds and test with those.

[piller]

Too bad you are in Florida and not in Texas. If you were closer I could trade you a box of 50 for something.

[GunnyMack]

Always start by looking at the simple things first. Since it fed/shot the 38s easily I figured it was the mag ammo.

[earlmck]

Sounds ammo related to me.

I agree it sounds ammo to me. Look at that 357 brass, I bet it is swelled towards the base. The 38 special being lower pressure won't stick like hot stuff.

As for the action feeling gritty it's possible that your trying to make if work could have raised a burr but I doubt it. Take it apart and inspect, lube and try some different ammo.

Then I tried loading in manually a couple of spent shells and they were pretty tight going in and extracting.

That's a dead give-away. That ammo was waaaay overpressure.

[LeverLuvr]

Too bad you are in Florida and not in Texas. If you were closer I could trade you a box of 50 for something.

Appreciate the offer and thanks all for the input. There was a gun show this past weekend but I heard ammo purchases required a second mortgage to fund . I never minded a road trip, so hold on to that offer. If it gets to dry, I may have to plan a trip to the lone star state. No stars here, to much humidity

[mikld]

Silly question I know, but did you give it a good cleaning when you got it home? Magnums are a bit longer than Specials so maybe a dirty chamber?

[LeverLuvr]

I haven't cleaned it yet, no. But I started out with the 357's. I figured if I started with the 38 rounds, I'd get a carbon buildup and the longer 357's might get a little sticky in there from the shorter rounds. Hoping it's just an ammo thing, not looking forward to sending it back in todays environment.

[LeverLuvr]

Well, I finally found some 357 mag ammo. I picked up a 50 rnd box of Fiocchi 158gr CMJ. Absolutely no issues. I have 10 more rounds of the Magtech, but didn't want to chance it. The day after the first time shooting, I did a complete break down of the gun and this is what I found....First off, it's possible the original issue could have been a goof on my part. When I first got the gun, I put a few extra drops of oil on a few key spots as I wanted to lube it up pretty good and rack it a couple of hundred times hoping to smooth it up even more before I took it to the range for the first time. Well, I kinda, maybe, possibly, might have, likely, probably, could have forgotten to give it a good doucheing and proper light oiling before going to the range. When I took it apart, it was definitely well oiled . I polished a few of spots and found one thing that was not to my liking. On the lever is a spring loaded latch that locks in the lever when closed. It has a small pin thru the lever that holds it in. That part of the lever goes up into the receiver just in front of the trigger. The pin was not flush with the sides of the lever and I could run my finger over it and it felt pretty sharp and protruded just a hair on both sides. It was catching slightly on the receiver as I locked it up in. I took a small file and took it down flush on both sides. That, a tiny touch of oil, and a little spot polishing here and there smoothed up right nice. I think my next project is going to be putting some shims in the lever and the hammer to take out some side to side slop.

The other thing I have done is put on a Henry one piece base and rings mount for a 3-9x40 Nikon scope. I never liked a scope on a levergun but, my eye sight is bad enough that I could barely see where I was hitting at 25 yard, and at 50 I could barely see the target. With the scope, I zeroed it out at 75 and was getting 1 inch groups. With that kind of grouping at 75, I'll take the razzing So after a stupid oversight and a little tweaking, it's a shooter I'm happy with now. Not a speedster, but smooth and accurate.

[gamekeeper]

Glad to hear you got it running right

[piller]

Good for you. As far as a scope on it, don't let the purists stop you. If you need it, use a scope. 1 inch groups at 75 yards from any levergun are worthwhile.

[AJMD429]

Here's what I posted on another thread, regarding 'optics'....

"A few years back a friend was telling me I was stupid for liking leverguns, as they are "so inaccurate you can't hit anything". He had been shooting a 18" heavy barreled AR of mine, which with good handholds and some luck, could put five shots under a dime at 100 yards, and ten shots under a nickel most of the time. It has a 5-20x scope on it. I had just sighted in a Marlin XLR 30-30 with handholds that could shoot 5 shots into a 50 cent piece at 100 yards - it ALSO had a 5-20x scope on it at the time, just for load development. So - I challenged him that I thought the reason he was convinced leverguns were inaccurate was partly that some are sloppy and inaccurate, but that the bigger issue was likely the sights that were on the guns he was used to. I went back to the house and returned to the range bench with the Marlin.

His own bolt action was a 243 Win in a Remington 700, with a 4-16x scope, he described as 'prairie dog medicine'. I let him shoot my handholds in the Marlin XLR 30-30 off a rest and he actually shot a smaller 5-shot group than I did - about 3/4" to my 1-1/4". Of course he said the gun was 'an exception' (and perhaps it is - Marlin fancied them up and 'free-floated' the magazine tube a bit). Normally, I don't like to take off and remount scopes (my son used to drive me crazy swapping scopes on MY guns... ) but I got out a hex wrench and removed the AR's scope, flipping up the nice MagPul backup peeps, and said - now - shoot me a better group. Of course he couldn't - the best either of us (both over 50 at the time) could do was about 4-5 inches at 100 yards. For one thing, the front post is probably wider than the 8x11" paper our targets were printed on...for that reason, I've never figured out how the guys who use iron sights can shoot such small groups, when the 'group' is going to need to be an eighth of the width of the front sight to be decent... Anyhow, I think he realized that his 'life experience' with bolt action rifles was pretty much limited to bottle-neck cartridges (high velocity = flat shooting = less vertical error due to range), and exclusively with SCOPED firearms, whereas the few leverguns he'd shot were equipped with pretty crummy barrel-mounted 'drift-adjustable' notch sights. Even a good set of aperture sights with a fine gold bead up front (like my Marlins usually wind up with eventually) is better than what most people leave on their leverguns.

For younger people, perhaps a good-quality 'buckhorn' or whatever open sight is enough, but as they age, likely they'd do better with a good aperture like the Williams or Lyman, and a fine bead, or even a 'globe' front sight, but when we get to geezer-age, it is hard to beat a good optic, whether it is a glass one with appropriate magnification for the task-at-hand, or even a good quality (non-blurry) red-dot or holographic sight.
"

[LeverLuvr]

Red dots don't work to good for me, I have astigmatism. I went back out today to finish sighting in my dad's mini 14. I put a 3-9x40 scope on it for him. On the way out I stopped at WallyWorld and grabbed a Simmons spotting scope (20-60 power) so I could see where I was hitting on the target. I could see the target thru the rifle scope good enough but couldn't see where it was hitting. The 5.56 makes a pretty tiny hole at that distance. What a difference. The next time I go I'm gonna see what my Henry will do at 100 yards. Once I know it's hitting on the cross hairs, I'll know I can make clean shots at 100. Looks like all my new acquisitions from here on out are gonna be scoped. Ain't no fun shooting if you cant see what your shootin at. At least I don't need one for my pistols.

[LeverLuvr]

It's been a while since I posted any followup on this subject, so I figured I would give a progress report. Back in mid August I picked up 3 - 50 rnd boxes of Winchester super-x 158grn, a couple of boxes of Norma Hexagon match grade 180 grn, and some Sig Sauer 125 grn. A pretty good variety of 357 mag to work with. A couple of weeks ago I went back to run some ammo thru this thing and this is the range report for the day. The Norma's shot pretty good, 2" groups at 100yds but just a touch finicky at times cycling into chamber but otherwise no issues. Sig's ran pretty good but groups were a bit more open at about 3-4" at 100. The Winchesters didn't do so good for me. Cycled fine but 6 rounds in, I couldn't get the next round to fully load into the chamber. Tried a few different bullets but no go. Then I notice a short shell laying on the table and looking closer realized the last 1/4" of the shell was broke off and missing. It was stuck in the chamber . So once again, back to the bench with the Henry. I took an Allen wrench just big enough to fit inside an empty shell, stuck it into the chamber and the broke off piece, put just a touch of side pressure on the wrench, and turned it just a touch back and forth, all while slowly working it out. Took all of about 15 seconds and the chamber was clear. Thank you YouTube Thoroughly cleaned and lubed and put it away.

So today, I went back out to the range on a mission. 1st, to get the AR-15 I just built sighted in. no issues, ran smooth, and center mass was history after the first magazine of 30 at 50 yds. Done and very happy. Now for the Henry. Ran 10 rounds of the Fiocchi. Ran good, decent grouping, no issues. Had 20 rnds left from the Magtech box I originally had the extraction problems with and loaded them up. 1st 10 ran fine, ok grouping. Second 10 the extraction issue came back and I finished them off. Then I went to the Winchesters I had the broken shell issue a couple of weeks ago, and gave them another shot hoping for the best since I had almost 3 full boxes of them. 40 rounds later, no issues, no more broken shells, 2" groups at 100 yds. Ran some of the other ammo thru again, all with no issues. This after the Magtech ammo.

So my final report is..... The Magtech was bad ammo. Overloaded, not sized correctly, who knows, but it was poop stuff. The Winchesters rebounded and performed well. Ran good and decent accuracy. The broken shell seems to have been a fluke . The other ammo ran with no issues and varying degrees of accuracy. That and the TriggerShims I put in on the lever and hammer, its running and shooting like a Chevy and I actually had an enjoyable experience shooting it for a change. Now I'm ready to take my purtty Henry, buff the Walnut, polish the brass, put on my camo tuxedo, and shoot me a distinguished pig.

[Neal]

LeverLuvr,

Thanks for posting this. Very happy to read that it was an ammo problem
instead of a gun problem.

[Grizz]

Sounds like you got it working. But I'm curious about the chamber. It seems like it might be a. a little oversized at the breech end, and, or a little undersized at the other end, or tapered slightly, or a little rough, or a little short.

if the chamber is exact saami spec, and if it's anything like the BrownChesters, there is no actual lead, so if cases are even a fraction long, maybe they are squeezing the case longitudinally? I remember in the past there were some folks who were cutting an actual leade into the chambers of 45/70s to allow larger bullets to feed and fire.

maybe none of this pertains to your Henry. but chambers are sized a certain way for a reason, and brass is springy so that it can spring back.

this is a spot where a chronometer might help. because I wonder about the magtech ammo. could be hot, but need a chrono to check that. I think it's unlikely that an ammo manufacturer would intentionally make ammo that is hotter than saami specs without cautioning buyers.

just curious. glad it's shooting well for you. I may have to follow you with the scope so I can quantify some of my own ammo anomalies.