Henry Rifle Forums

Evening All,

I was going to post in the Range Report section, but since I have a few issues to report, I decided to come here first. I went to the range with my brand-new .357 Big Boy yesterday, and discovered a few problems - two fairly minor, and one more concerning. To wit...

1. Due to the nature of firearm background checks in IL, I had to quickly pick up the rifle at my LGS on my way out of town (long story). I had briefly inspected it when I purchased it, but certainly not a thorough inspection. Bad on me, I know. When I got to the range yesterday, I noticed that something was off-kilter at the end of the barrel. I discovered that the magazine tube was shoved to the side in its dovetail mount, so that it stuck out to the side at the end. I thought maybe it had gotten that way during transport, but it was in the box on top of our luggage, and the box was not squashed in any way. I tried to push it over in the dovetail, but it won't move. I'm sure it's an easy fix.

2. I mounted a couple 8.5" circular paper targets at 25 yards to try to get the iron sights lined up. My first two groups of five rounds ended without a single hole on the targets. Perplexed, I aimed at the left edge of the targets. Now I have holes (nice group) right of center and about three inches low. The elevation was easy to square away, but I'm going to have to move the windage over. I'm about 5 inches right at 25 yards! That's quite a way off. The front and rear sight dovetails look centered, so I'm a little concerned here.

3. The biggie, and the one I'm not sure what to do about... I fired sets of either five or ten rounds, for a total of 100 rounds. 50 rounds were PMC 357A 158g JSP rounds, and 50 rounds of Fiocchi 357F 142g FMJTC. I'd say I shot twelve 5-shot groups and four 10-shot groups. So, a total of 16 times at the line. In 14 of 16 goes, the first round would not feed correctly. It jammed against the breech face. Every shot after that within the same magazine cycled just fine. It only affected the first round. I tried holding the gun at different angles and going fast or slow. Didn't seem to make any difference. Most of the time, I had to fiddle with the round thru the eject port to get it lined up enough where it would go into the chamber.

Issues #1 and #2 are easy fixes in my mind (by a gunsmith, not me), but I'm not sure where to start with #3. I don't know enough about the sequence of actions to know what's right or wrong. I think I need to get some snap caps and watch what is going on. The only difference in my mind between feeding that first round and the subsequent rounds is that there isn't anything being extracted on the first round. Maybe a good cleaning of the action will make things better? While I doubt this, but maybe the crooked magazine tube is causing some misalignment? I don't know, but I'm going to take the rifle to my gunsmith tomorrow and have him give me his professional opinion. Maybe I'll have him fix things or maybe I'll send it back to Henry. Still deciding what I want to do.

Thank you for listening to me. Have a great night!

Steven

Im thinking you would be best off to give Henry a call. If your 5 inches right of center holding center Im not thinking drifting sights is going to move it that far. Dunno about the tube without seeing pictures. But I bet your gunsmith may advise you in the same way. Al

the cheapest way to take care of all of those issues is to contact Henry .... with a new rife, that's the way I'd tend to go .... tomorrow morning I'm due to pick up 2 of our Henry rifles from a gunsmith .... I'm having him adjust their trigger pull .... that is an elective on my part so I figure its appropriate for me to pay to have it done .... on issues that are warranty related, I tend to favor going back to the manufacture

I'll agree with the above.

That Fiocchi load you used is my rifles favorite round so I don't think it's your choice of factory ammo.

My .357 BBS Carbine was dead zero on sites and seems to feed anything I shove in the tube. I agree with those that recommended contacting Henry, all I hear is good things about their CS.

I completed a warranty service request with Henry. Hopefully, I'll hear back from them soon.

Sartori42 wrote:I completed a warranty service request with Henry. Hopefully, I'll hear back from them soon.

It sounds like you filled out an online form. If so, and if you don't get a response later today or tomorrow morning, I'd make a phone call to talk with someone in CS.

Welcome to the forum!

I had briefly inspected it when I purchased it, but certainly not a thorough inspection. Bad on me

Hopefully a learning experience - next time give the potential purchase a serious inspection before accepting - and this includes a patch run down the barrel.

issues # 1 and #2

Essentially any rifle with dovetailed parts has the potential of them ‘moving’ and might need to be repositioned. Resetting dovetails can be a little unnerving but is easily accomplished. With regard to #2 it is almost essential the owner learn to move dovetails because if the owner plans on using a buckhorn sight he or she will most likely need to ‘drift’ the sight for minor corrections - and this is not something you need to run off to a gunsmith for every time you need a little ‘tap in’
With regard to you reporting 5” off at 25 yards this might be a real problem - and as previously mentioned this is a lot to correct by sight adjustment. I would let someone else shoot it to confirm a problem before coming to any conclusions but on the surface that is ‘off’ a lot if the sights are centered (double check with a machinist’s rule to be sure)
Once you get the sight issue resolved I highly recommend you get a William’s WGRS rear sight and install in backwards with the windage blade reversed for the proper fit. This has been outlined by myself and others on two threads about it. Ease of adjustment with an improved sight picture are the advantages.
#3 is most likely just standard ‘new gun’ issues and will vary from gun to gun. A new owner may not understand this and few of the many guns I have owned over the years have been ‘perfect’ out of the box. Heck even my BBB had a slight clambering problem but cleared itself out after a few cycles of ammo through it.
I hope you get yours taken care of but understand owning any gun (especially a Lever action) will require some owner involvement when it comes to minor adjustments and repairs.
I will be more than happy to explain dovetail ‘drifting’ and fitting if you would like - if so please PM me.

Sartori42 wrote:I completed a warranty service request with Henry. Hopefully, I'll hear back from them soon.

Pick up the phone....you'll be much happier if you do . The folks at Henry are very easy to deal with and you will get instant results.= Call.

Good luck & Happy Shootin!
Petey

So, as a quick update. I got the issue with the magazine tube pushed out to the left resolved. I also have been working with Patrick at Henry Customer Service. He has been very helpful and they are standing behind me as I work thru the issues. The next step is to go to the range on Friday to see if moving the magazine tube back centered under the barrel has any effect on POI. Everyone who actually saw the rifle, and Patrick, agreed that the feed tube being so off-center left could have been pushing the barrel slightly to the right. So, we will see what happens on Friday. I also bought some .357 snap caps and (frustratingly) the gun runs those thru without issue. So, that issue (#3) may have been operator error or the gun just getting slightly broke in. I will know more after Friday.

For Mistered... There were 3 of us at the range that first day. Everyone had the same results. In the end, I just want to get the irons close, as I plan to put a scope on the rifle.

Thank you everyone for your valued inputs.