Shooting the 1860 Henry Rifle

Yesterday I went out to a friend's place and we put 100 rounds through the Cimarron Firearms 1860 Henry. The ammunition was 50 rounds each of two different loads:

First, .44 Henry Flat rimfire-equivalent loads:

• Starline brass
• CCI large pistol primers
• 28 grains Goex 3Fg black powder
• 0.5cc of cornmeal, to take up airspace
• 219 grain bullet cast from an Accurate Molds 43-215C mold

The second 50 rounds were as above, but with a full charge of 35 grains of 3Fg Goex and no cornmeal filler.

My first ten shots, fired offhand from about 40 - 45 yards:

My point of aim was at 6:00 on the bullseye. Can't complain about that.

We spent most of my rounds shooting at an 8-inch steel gong from the same distance. A short video:

In the video I was shooting the full-power .44 WCF loads with 35 grains of powder.

The rifle hangs really nicely for offhand shooting although at about 9 lbs. it's heavy. Recoil is very mild. Functioning was excellent and the action is slicking up, being noticeably smoother now than when it was fresh out of the box.

After shooting, we dropped the spent cases into a jar of soapy water to clean off most of the black powder fouling.

This took care of most of the fouling but I'm going to run them through my case tumbler for about 30 - 60 minutes.

This was the most black powder loads I've put through a rifle in one outing. The action got no fouling in it. The bore took only about 10 - 12 patches wet with moose milk (Ballistol/water mix) to get clean. 

I'm going to load up some more of the .44 Henry-equivalent loads and use them at my club's next lever action shoot. I'll also run some mild smokeless loads with Unique through it, and I've recently read some pieces that indicate Herco is a good smokeless powder for use in .44 WCF, so if I see any at the next gun show I'll pick up a pound. It's a little slower and I think bulkier than Unique, and may meter better, which would be a plus. 

Incidentally, we also shot my circa-1895 Winchester 1892 .38 WCF at the gong, with smokeless loads of a 180 grain cast bullet on top of 9.0 grains of Unique. These were noticeably more powerful than the Ultramax .38-40 cowboy ammo I'd shot in the rifle previously. However, even the .44 Henry-equivalent loads in the 1860 smacked the gong around a lot more.