A Henry Contender?

[Mags]

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In a way not surprising. Good way on Henry's part to minimize tooling costs. Keeping things common except for the bore. What seems odd though is lack of 'keying' studs to prevent interchangeability like this.

It gets a little more interesting. I just picked up another Henry Single in 357Mag and its barrel/forearm assmbly fits into the 45-70 and 44Mag receivers. In fact, all three are interchangeable with each other. It looks like the only difference in all three rifles is the diameter of their bores. The barrels all have the exact same length and outer dimensions...

[Mistered]

What seems odd though is lack of 'keying' studs to prevent interchangeability like this.

Maybe Henry is eventually going to offer barrels only to facilitate interchangeability.
From a customer standpoint it would add to the appeal by offering additional barrels to allow multiple calibers at a lower cost. I would think
More people would buy additional barrels rather
Than multiple guns to obtain multiple calibers.

[tractortad]

Took NCG's advice on this and sent an email to Henry Tech Dept asking about changing single shot barrel assemblies and also if it was possible to buy a single barrel for a single-shot rifle. Got the following back:

"Thank you for your interest. I'm sorry, the platform was not designed for bbl interchange and spare bbls are not being offered as separate accessories"

Kind of what I expected - but it would not surprise me in the least if they were to offer "spare bbls" for single shots sometime in the future - it looks like the platform is already capable of changing barrels with different calibers. The parts diagram in the owners manual lists the same parts for all calibers of single shot rifles (single shot shotguns have a different firing pin) - and I doubt there is any custom hand fitting in the manufacturing process for these rifles. Time will tell....