Magazine Tube Failure

[JEBar]

earlier today Mike (The Wiz) (first picture) joined me at a local private range during a really nice day in our part of the country .... he brought his beautiful Henry 357 Golden Boy & a 22 LR both equipped with rear peep sights .... early on I ran about 20 rounds through our 45-70, 7 through the chrony and the rest testing grouping (results posted in another ongoing thread) .... after firing at 20 yards (first picture), we moved back to 50 yards and finally to 100 yards .... at 100 we were both firing my Henry 44 Mag with it's Nikon scope at skeet mounted on the range's backstop .... the last time Mike fired it he was on his way to put up more skeet when I noticed a split in outer magazine tube .... I've already called Henry .... first thing in the morning a return label will be emailed to me .... this the rifle I plan to take with us on our coming trip to Texas .... they have promised to expedite the repair so as to make that possible

[GFK]

Sorry about your situation. Glad you got a return slip. I guess the 45-70 has a kick! About how many rounds have you ran through it so far? From your posts, I gather it is a lot.

[CT_Shooter]

.... at 100 we were both firing my Henry 44 Mag with it's Nikon scope at skeet mounted on the range's backstop .... the last time Mike fired it he was on his way to put up more skeet when I noticed a split in outer magazine tube .... I've already called Henry .... first thing in the morning a return label will be emailed to me .... this the rifle I plan to take with us on our coming trip to Texas .... they have promised to expedite the repair so as to make that possible

Keep us posted, JEBar.

[JEBar]

Sorry about your situation. Glad you got a return slip. I guess the 45-70 has a kick! About how many rounds have you ran through it so far? From your posts, I gather it is a lot.

the tube issue is on our Henry 44 Mag that has literally had 10's if thousands of rounds fired through it .... I seem to remember the same type of issue with the early 45-70's but so far it hasn't been one with ours .... I know she's fired well over a thousand rounds, probably closer to a couple of thousand

[shootinthecinders]

JEBar, I hope that Henry can rectify the mag tube split and return your rifle before you leave for Texas. Were there rounds in the magazine tube that pushed the inner mag tube out or did you pull it out after noticing the split?

[GFK]

Sorry about your situation. Glad you got a return slip. I guess the 45-70 has a kick! About how many rounds have you ran through it so far? From your posts, I gather it is a lot.

the tube issue is on our Henry 44 Mag that has literally had 10's if thousands of rounds fired through it ....

Oh. Sorry. Thanks!

[ESquared]

Seems like an odd failure, but must just be metal fatigue from all that shootin'!

Here's hoping you get it back in time for your trip!

[JEBar]

JEBar, I hope that Henry can rectify the mag tube split and return your rifle before you leave for Texas. Were there rounds in the magazine tube that pushed the inner mag tube out or did you pull it out after noticing the split?

Mike said the inner mage tube came out a few inches when he fired his last round .... when I walked over to it with the intent of loading 10 more rounds I immediately noticed the inner tube sticking out and the split in the outer tube .... as an interesting side note, when I first called Henry, I spoke with the same fellow who handled shipping our 44 back for the ejection problem .... his first question was, "How far did it launch the tube?" .. .. tomorrow morning I'll pull the scope, give hear a good cleaning, box her up and wait on the return label .... less than an hour after it does, she'll be handed over to UPS

[JEBar]

Seems like an odd failure, but must just be metal fatigue from all that shootin'!

Here's hoping you get it back in time for your trip!

in thinking back, I believe it had been failing for a while... I'd noticed that it had gotten very easy to lock the inner tube .... I thought the O-ring probably needed to be replaced .... never considered the outer tube was failing

[Mags]

I go with metal fatigue as well. But there is also a design contribution to the failure. The outer mag tube is not a solid tube. It's a curled piece of metal formed into tube with an open seam that runs the length of tube. The open seam is facing the barrel making it nearly unnoticeable. One can see the open seem by looking through the loading port of the outer mag tube. Because of this the weakest part of the mag tube metal is between the locking notch on one side of the tube and the open seam on the other side. The outer mag tube would be more durable in this area if the mag tube seam opposite the notch had been spot welded (then machined smooth).