My new to me rescue Henry

[daytime dave]

I was in my favorite gun store, looking for some ammunition. As is my habit, I looked over the used gun section. I had pledged to make my next Henry rifle purchase to be an Original Henry in .45 Colt. I can say I got half of that right.

I saw a BigBoy in brass with a large hole in the end of the barrel. As I inspected it, there was nothing wrong with it. The front wood had a huge ding in it and that was it. It was in .45 Colt. I had never, ever, seen a Henry in the used rifle section. Never at any store. I spoke with my acquaintance and it was a very good price. It now stands next to it's twin in the safe. The Original will have to wait for a while. New acquisitions are on hold as the fiance prepares to retire and we move closer to the camp in the next few years.

I doubt you would have left this in the rack either.

The first photo shows the ding pretty good.

[RetiredSeabee]

Nice, glad it has gone to a good home.

[JEBar]

really good find .... congrats .... looking forward to your impressions after sending a bunch of rounds down range

[Les]

Two superb rifles and a beautiful cat .... life just doesn't get any better, Dave!

[clovishound]

Did you name your cat Henry?

[BrokenolMarine]

You can probably get a new forearm from Henry for a good price.
Or take some 80 grit sandpaper, and smooth the rough edges of the gouge, then some 120, then 220 and blend, and you'll soon forgidaboudit. (After a dab of walnut stain and a touch of wax.) A great project for a winter afternoon!

[Sir Henry]

Ya what is the cat's name?

[Cofisher]

Thylvester

[ditto1958]

Time for some dual wielding?

[RanchRoper]

You are Really going to like shooting that rifle and caliber. Congrats.
Take the for end off and call it a Hollywood 1860...

[Frontiersman]

What a nice find.

[BigAl52]

IMG_0720.JPG

Look What I have Dave. If you want it send me your address and I will give it to you. Al

[BigAl52]

I bet the cats name is Barney right Dave?????

[Steve51]

Good for you, Dave! Now with Al's help, you will have a flawless Henry 45.

Reminds me of the time I had to send my .45-70 to Henry for repair. It has a slight ding in the butt stock that was my doing. When I got the rifle back from Henry, it had a new butt stock on it. I was really surprised!

[North Country Gal]

Wonderful find, Dave and look how easy it was to get rid of that huge gouge in the stock. Love to hear more about how it shoots.

[BrokenolMarine]

Sweet. That's what family is all about.

[JCN]

Really cool. I'd love to find a used Henry at my LGS!

[daytime dave]

I picked up a box of .45 Colt with the rifle. Holy cow I'm glad I have a reloading set up. I'll need to reload for it if I plan to shoot it much. (But I plan to reload when I completely retire and shoot a lot.)

That is my cat. His name is Riley. Mary has three female cats. When I moved in, her old momma cat still remained the queen of the house. She and Riley tolerate each other. He gets along with the other two fine. He's twice as big as any of them.

[clovishound]

The prevailing wisdom is that reloading will NOT save you any money. It will, however, allow you to shoot a whole lot more with the same amount of money. I just bought some .45 ACP on sale yesterday at $12 a box. A smoking hot deal, until you consider I load them myself for about $7.50 a box. I could knock a couple bucks a box off by shooting cast, but prefer plated or coated. I do like to have some factory with me when I go to the range in case I let someone try out the 1911 when I'm there. It's not that I don't trust my loads, I just prefer to not to go through the spiel that these are my loads and are they comfortable with shooting someone else's loads.

I've toyed with the idea of getting Clovispup to film me showing the Lee Classic Turret press in action with her new Nikon after Christmas and post it here.

[BrokenolMarine]

It's true, reloading will save you money, IF you shoot a large volume of ammunition. Back when I was competing, I was buying supplies based on a minimum of 10k rounds a year. Yup, the press and accessories for reloading paid for themselves many times over. For the casual plinker you are probably better off shopping for sales.

Recently, I thought of adding .223 dies and setup to my Dillon 550B. After a careful look at the cost for a full setup for the caliber, I decided just to go with watching for case lot sales. I am no longer competing and don't shoot either of the 223's that often... not enough to justify the expense.

The press and the tool heads are only the tip of the iceberg... powder, brass, bullets.. tumbler, sorter, storage, scales, ....

loading bench.jpg

But, the amount of ammo you can load in bulk really makes a difference if you are shooting thousands of rounds a year in practice and competition.
When I was really into it hot and heavy, we got together once a year as a group, and about a dozen officers ordered 100s of thousands of bullets, 100s of thousands of primers and also powder by the 100s of pounds. The supplier gave us a deep discount. A couple of the Sergeants drove to the dealer and towing an enclosed trailer, picked up the entire load. Even sharing the cost of the trip, we ALL saved a bundle. The two sergeants were rangemasters for two different departments, and the dozen officers covered about five agencies... sweet huh?