Single Shot or Lever Action

[Hidden Mortimer]

My next rifle will be a Henry in 45-70. What I don't know is if I want it in single shot or lever. I guess my main concern is recoil. My shoulders are not as healthy as they used to. Also I've heard different accounts about accuracy with break action rifles, because they are not at rigid they tend to be less accurate than say a falling or rolling block. Is there any truth to this?

I wish Henry would offer the single shot with a 24" barrel. I would pay the asking price any day, after all it shouldn't too much more. What are your thoughts?

[JEBar]

out of the box, Henry list the weight of their single shot as 6.83 lbs. ..... the weight of our Color Case Hardened as 8.10 lbs. .... with recoil being an issue, that has to be considered .... there are mods that can be made to both that lower felt recoil but given the same mods, the heavier will have less recoil .... with the mods to our Color Case Hardened 45-70, recoil is no longer a significant concern .... as to longevity, ours is heavily built and I have no doubt it will be shooting strong when passed down to our grandchildren

[tractortad]

Agree with JEBar on this one - the Henry H010CC with the octagon barrel is a good looking, well made, big, heavy rifle with a nice recoil pad that really soaks up the push from any 45/70 load. I could shoot this thing all day with most factory ammo (if I could afford it). It's probably not the gun you want to haul thru the woods on a whitetail hunt, but it is fun-fun-fun to shoot at the range or at a home-made plinking range....

[Squatch]

I love my brass 45/70 lever action. That being said that if the single shot had been out then I'd have bought a single shot in 45/70 instead.

I shoot my levers at the range as a single shot most of the time anyway. Open and eject. Drop a cartridge in the slot and close the lever.

Accuracy is not an issue. As long as the sights are on the barrel their relationship to each other doesn't change. Any movement in the hinge is a non issue.

[North Country Gal]

Don't lose any sleep on the break barrel versus fixed action question. On paper, the notion of a fixed action being better sounds good and logical, but you'd be very hard pressed to actually prove it when compared to a quality break open rifle. This is the sort of talk that gets a lot of play on internet forums and over the gun counter by people who have zilch experience with a good break open. For instance, the bulk of our collection is TC Contender break open pistols and rifles. My Contenders, yes, even the pistols, will hold their own and often outshoot, bolt action rifles and it doesn't get any more fixed action than that. Have no reason to suspect Henry single shots will give you any issues in the accuracy department.

Another plus for single shots is that they will take any kind of ammo. No issues on feeding and ejection.

As for the 45-70, the beauty of the cartridge is the wide range of loads you can shoot. With our little Contender carbine with the 45-70 barrel on it, we're talking a gun that rarely breaks 5 pounds with scope. Thanks to a slip on recoil pad, I can handle any Trap Door level 45-70 loads (those are all the Contender can handle.) Don't know what you plan to hunt, but there's nothing in our neck of the woods that couldn't be killed, cleanly, with a 405 grain bullet at 1300 fps or a 325 at 1600 fps.

[Yornoc3]

You can always hunt up an on-line recoil calculator and see what the "numbers" say about the recoil with weight of the rifle using the load you plan to shoot in it. I've done that, as I patiently await the arrival of my 45-70 single shot. As I recall, recoil won't be any worse than from the 3" 12 ga. waterfowl loads I shoot- lots of - through a 7 lb Franchi Intensity duck gun. My main purpose is as a hunting rifle, though, I don't plan to plink much with it, but you never know .

[BigAl52]

Ive got the CCH 45-70 and the All Weather 45-70. While I like both guns I can tell you that the CCH is alot better when it comes to recoil becasue of its size and weight. Nothing against the single shots but felt recoil with one of those will be significantly more than the CCH. I like the CCH and I would buy it all over again if given the choice between it and the single shot. Al

[Hidden Mortimer]

Thanks to all for the replies. Those CCH do look nice but the weight might be a deterrent. I plan to use it for hunting. My plan is to some day move to a place where I'm able to hunt in wooded areas and harvest more than one deer per season. Can't really fill the freezers here in AZ.

[Shakey Jake]

The most accurate rifle I've ever owned/own is a Ruger Model 1 in 25/06. I've owned and traded off Winchesters, Marlins, and Brownings (automatics and bolt actions) and with this rifle I've all the confidence in the world that I'm going to hit where aimed. I'm down to this one centerfire rifle (until I get my Henry .327 Federal Mag on Monday) and it's all the rifle I need for game hunting.