Henry Rifle Forums

The AR-7 rifle was first produced by Armalite in 1959. Since then the rifle has been produced by Charter Arms, AR-7 Industries, Survival Arms and Henry Repeating Arms. The basic design has not changed much although Henry Repeating Arms has made several upgrades over the years. What if the design is slightly flawed for firing standard commercial .22 Long Rifle ammunition?

After World War II the United State military used a variety of .22 Long Rifle firearms for marksmanship training, as survival rifles and for clandestine operations.

Reading many online forums the AR-7 has a reputation for being a jamomatic with varying degrees of reliability depending on who manufactured it. What if all the reliability issues are due to the wrong ammunition being used?

The 1899 Hague Convention prohibited the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body which banned soft-point bullets. Although the United States did not ratify this convention I have read that they choose to abide by it and as a result the Cartridge Caliber .22 Ball Long Rifle M24 was developed.

Cartridge Caliber .22 Ball Long Rifle M24 (Ref: TM-9-1305-200)
Cartridge. This cartridge is intended for use in caliber .22 long rifle survival weapons and is provided in Air Force survival kits. Its primary purpose is for hunting small game

Cartridge Length – 0.995 inch
Cartridge Case Length – 0.613 inch
Bullet – Gilding Metal Jacket with Lead-Antimony Slug 0.475 inch long.
Accuracy – extreme spread of all targets at 100 yards is not greater than 1.25 inches.

Complete Cartridge Weight – 53 grain
Cartridge Case Weight – 10 grain
Propellant Weight – 2.5 grain
Bullet Weight
- Complete 40.5 grain
- Jacket 6.5 grain
- Slug 34 grain.

I find it interesting to note that in the same manual the Cartridge Caliber .22 Ball Long Rifle Western Super Match Mk III accuracy was 2.5 inches at 100 yds.

The Cartridge Caliber .22 Ball Long Rifle M24 had a velocity of 1185 fps 15 feet from the muzzle. My AR-7s run very reliably with copper plated bullets such as CCI Mini Mags which are listed at 1255 fps but are less than reliable with ammunition such as CCI Standard Velocity lead round nose at 1070 fps.

I wonder how well my rifle would run if I had .22 LR full metal jacket?

Odd looking cartridge, compared to modern stuff. Interesting that it was developed specifically for 'survival' rifles. Thanks for the update

Yep, the AR-7 will jam on you and it will jam every way you can think of: failure to feed, failure to fire, failure to extract and failure to eject. The guy in the vid below has almost ALL of the failures. Note that he as a gen 2 or 3 Henry NOT a Charter Arms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2676LkDUvMY

1. Failure to Feed. The AR-7 does this one a couple ways. One way is the blunt nose of the round won't get past the sharp edge on the chamber. When you take the round out, sometimes you will see a smile cut into the nose of the bullet.

The other way is seen in the video below. From 0:15 to 0:30 you can see that the bolt come against the back of the round ... the back of the round goes DOWN first and the nose goes up as it is being pushed forward. The result is, the round gets jammed 3 ways ... in the magazine, against the back of the barrel above the chamber AND the bolt slams against the center of the round, either bending the brass or bending the bullet out of the case.

After the first 3 jams, you will see that a number of jams that are actually 2 failures ... the same failure to feed and also a failure to eject.

The vid by taofledermaus was very helpful in seeing what was really happening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65RIjTL ... ex=28&t=6s

2. Failure to Fire. Almost everybody can attest to the fact that .22 rimfire is not the most reliable ammunition. This is mostly due to the way that it is primed. There are a number of things that can cause the AR-7 to fail to fire ... especially "cheap ammo" ... and a number of ways to fix it: a dirty chamber, a loose barrel nut, friction between the firing pin and its slot in the bolt, and loss of inertia of the firing pin due to a weak spring, slop between the hammer and the hammer pivot pin, and slop between the trigger and the trigger pivot pin.

Below are vids of guys shooting cci's and having failures to fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYNLsai ... L&index=29

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-a8Hag ... L&index=30


3. Failure to Extract. I've not seen much of this, but it does happen. Look for dirt and crud in the extractor slot in the barrel and friction between the extractor and its slot in the bolt.

4. Failure to Eject. New shooters with Glocks have the same problem. They hold the pistol a bit too loosely ... limp wrist it ... and the spent case just doesn't clear the receiver. With one of my stocks on an AR-7, I can make this happen with almost every round. Check for a damaged ejector, or friction between the extractor and its slot in the bolt.

I bought my AR7 2 years ago but just found this forum. I've only shot a couple hundred rounds of various ammo though it, I have had no failures of any type. First magazine produced an 8 shor=t 2: group at 25 yds and had been consistent ever since. Tried shooting it is a plate challenge. Acuracy was great but the 8 round magazine hurt my time changing magazines, It was great fun regardless.

Sorry for the typos/. Should have been 8 shot 2" group at 25 yds.

I like my AR-7. It rarely gets much time on my shoulder as I have a few others I enjoy shooting more.

Luckily, someone will get one in the giveaway. I like the package they assembled.

I must be one lucky person when it comes to my AR-7. Other than having an ammo problem one time, my AR-7 has been trouble free. Ammo problem was with cci velocitor. On the second mag of this mmo, the third round came apart. About one third of the rim was missing on the brass. Took it home an cleaned and inspected it. Found no problems with the rifle itself. Only damage was to the magazine. For whatever reason, that mag will not feed properly. I marked it with white paint so I don't use it any more. Since then I have shot aprox 600 rounds through it with no problems of any kind.
Accuracy is good also. Last time out I had 4-6 bell ringers at 100 yards per mag. That's good enough for me. Still hard to believe that in less than a minute, you can have a fairly accurate rifle assembled and ready to go. Good job Henry.

I'm wondering which AR-7's you fella's have. Over the years, Henry has build about 3 different AR-7's. The good news is that they got progressively better as time went on. Was yours built in Brooklyn, Bayonne or Rice Lake?

Just checked. Mine is a product of Rice Lake.

I checked also, Bayonne NJ for mine.