Barrel Twystery

[Bill.68]

I read some posts on here when I first registered, skimming through each section and remember seeing the subject of the 44 caliber BigBoy twist rate and the fact that Henry, wisely, changed to the much preferred rate of 1:20 and abandoned the 1:38. If Im not mistaken it was a fairly recent thread so I dont know when Henry began doing this, but.....


I had to send my BB back to the mothership, I want to say it was late '20, for a new barrel.

Fast forward to today and Im cleaning up the BB for tomorrow's range session ( Ive been too busy and didnt clean from last weekends trip) and grabbed my carbon cleaning rod, a random selection but its the one that just happened to have a piece of green painters tape around the base of the rod next to the handle that forms a little flag.

My BB is the rifle version with the 20" octagonal tube. I put a nylon brush on with some CLP to break up any junk in there (only put 25 rounds through it last weekend, a record for me) and it was actually then that I noticed the little green tape "flag" and began watching it. To my surprise it is making one full turn! Is it a 1:20" I thought to myself. Could it be? I pushed it through again and watched, one full turn again. One more time. I oriented the flag straight up, pulled it through, yes, the flag is straight up again= one full turn in the 20 inches of the barrel. I suppose there is no guesswork here about which twist rate I have and I remember reading in that thread I referenced that Henry made no announcement about it, offers no serial number range, nothing about which rifles got it or when. I for one and elated to see that this barrel is a 1:20 because I am definitely not recoil sensitive and really enjoy shooting big, heavy slugs in big calibers and the 1:20 lends itself better to longer, heavier bullets.

Anyone else here know that they have the 1:20 and when was it aquired?

[Vaquero]

I believe you are correct, wish mine was, but being made in 07.
But in 2020 I had to send mine back as the mag tube holder was ripping off.
Well the design had changed since then so they changed the barrel also.
When it was returned that was the first thing I noticed, and immediately called them to inquire as to which they had installed.
To my surprise and Dislike they had NO clue as to which had been used.
Nor a very good way to run a business to me but oh well.
And I still ended up with the crappier one, and why I haven't shot it much.
Probably going down the road at some point.
I cast a 300+ rfn that I would like to try, but I just use it in the 444's.

RP

[DsGrouse]

I had a thread about bullet stability and twist rate. I, thought that the 45 /38/357 would be better at 1/28to 1/30. But I talked with a guy who runs one of the bullet stability calculators. He said Stable is stable. Even though his calculator isn't designed for pistol caliber rounds. if it shows as stable, it will be stable. The 1/16" seems to be the ticket. I do fine with some factory rounds, but I need to load for all my new Matt's bullets.

[fortyshooter]

My 44 Mag BBS carbine had the slow twist plus slightly oversized bore resulting in key holes when shooting low level Magnum or 44 Special cast bullet loads. Sold it and picked up another Henry in 45 X. The 1873 Uberti Carbine in 44 Mag shoots everything fine which took the place of the 44 Henry.
44 Mag has been a confusing caliber for the lever rifle makers for some reason but the revolver makers got it right.