New Henry Long Ranger (5.56) range report: huge disappointment
Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2021 8:06 am
Received new Henry Long Ranger in 5.56 about a week ago. Had a good weather day on Friday so went to the range with a couple of boxes of Federal AR-15, 5.56, Federal 223 and Lake City XM193. The good news first: The Henry exceeded my expectations for accuracy even with the crappy ammo that I took on the spur of the moment. The problem came with the way I had to operate the rifle. When inserting a full mag (5 rounds) I was unable to open the lever any more than half way when the bolt contacted the first round in the magazine. It took such effort effort at that point that I was afraid of stripping the gear system in the action. Only way I could chamber rounds from the magazine was to insert the mag with the action open and lever the first round in to the chamber. After the first round was fired the lever could be worker to chamber the 4 remaining rounds. The fun didn't stop there. the bolt would extract the spent cartridge but not eject it . The fired case would be hung up at about a 30 degree angle sticking out of the ejection port where I would manually remove it to chamber the next round.
I had disassembled the rifle upon receipt to thoroughly inspect, clean and lube it. I followed Henry's instructional video on disassembly and re-assembly to the letter to be sure I properly indexed the lever/bolt. When I returned from the range I did the process again thinking I possibly didn't get the indexing correct. I'm positive the rifle is correctly re-assembled. I loaded some dummy rounds with small based sized cases and 55 gr FMC bullets. The rifle failed exactly as it did for me at the range. I'm sure the rifle was test fired at the factory. Not sure how these problems were not noticed. I'd be interested in any comments forum members would have on this. I'm going to be contacting Henry on Monday.
I had disassembled the rifle upon receipt to thoroughly inspect, clean and lube it. I followed Henry's instructional video on disassembly and re-assembly to the letter to be sure I properly indexed the lever/bolt. When I returned from the range I did the process again thinking I possibly didn't get the indexing correct. I'm positive the rifle is correctly re-assembled. I loaded some dummy rounds with small based sized cases and 55 gr FMC bullets. The rifle failed exactly as it did for me at the range. I'm sure the rifle was test fired at the factory. Not sure how these problems were not noticed. I'd be interested in any comments forum members would have on this. I'm going to be contacting Henry on Monday.