Burned Some Charcoal Today

I'm off this week and made it to the range today with my GL Dech longrifle and my Cimarron 1860 Henry.

I've probably posted this picture before but what the heck.

The rifle started out as a left handed Dixie Gun Works Tennessee Mountain Rifle and then was redone as a Lancaster, Pennsylvania style rifle by George Dech. I bought it off the shelf at Dixon's about 10-1/2 years ago. Aside from the new wood and fittings, the barrel was turned to a half-round configuration, which makes it balance a lot better than a stock TMR.

My load today was 70 grains of Swiss 3Fg propelling a Hornady .480 roundball patched with pillow ticking, and lubed with mink oil tallow from Track of the Wolf. The .480 balls seat much easier than the more typical .490s and still provide minute-of-deer accuracy at 50 yards. AAMOF, I was able to shoot 10 shots without wiping and the smaller balls can be thumb seated. This will make reloading in the field much easier.

My flint broke on the first shot. My first inclination was to replace it but then it occurred to me that it would be interesting to see how it would work as-is. It turned out that I was able to fire nine more shots. All 10 shots went off quickly with no misfires or hangfires.

Now, generally speaking, I do not recommend shooting more than a few shots with a flint missing about 1/3 of it striking edge because it will lead to uneven frizzen wear. But I was curious to see how it would work and the experience reinforced my impression that the Miroku lock is really good.

I'll be replacing the flint tomorrow morning. I'm planning to go out for PA's late flintlock deer season in the afternoon with my brother.

After I cleaned up the smokepole, I put 50 rounds through my Cimarron Firearms 1860 Henry Rifle. They were my .44 Henry Flat-equivalent handholds of a cast 219 grain bullet, 28 grains of Goex 3Fg black powder, with 0.5cc of cornmeal as a spacer. Recoil in the nine pound Henry is about like a .22. (Full power loads with 35 grains recoil more but it's still pretty mild.)

I forgot to bring a .44 caliber cleaning jag with me to the range so I ran a couple wet patches through the bore using a slotted jag, to let it soak on my drive home. After getting home, only another 3 or 4 wet patches were required before they started coming out clean. Cleaning up after shooting black powder .44-40s in a rifle really is no big deal.

A Few Cool 1860 Henry Rifle Videos

These videos were posted by InRange TV last year but I only saw them tonight. I thought they were worth sharing.

The first one is an operator's guide. The one thing I would have added is mentioning the use of a glove on your support hand. In my experience with my Cimarron Firearms 1860 Henry Rifle in cool weather, it doesn't get too hot, even with black powder loads that generate more heat than smokeless powder. On the other hand, if the weather is warm, the rifle can get uncomfortably warm to hold in extended shooting.

I especially like his PVC speed loader. It's a modern equivalent to the Blakeslee Cartridge Box produced in limited number for use with the Spencer Rifle. (Link to replica.) With such a speed loader, reloading is faster than an 1866 Yellow Boy or 1873 Winchester.

The next video shows Karl running his Uberti Henry in a 2-gun match. (tactical lever guns, anyone?)

This video is valuable for a couple reasons. First, it demonstrates why lever actions are difficult to operate from prone. Second, it shows that you can deliver quite a lot of accurate lead on target with a manually operated rifle in a short time, and that they can still be a viable weapon 158 years after the debut of the Henry Rifle.

I'd be lying if I said the final video didn't make me cringe. In this one, Karl and Ian subject the Henry to a mud test.

Given the open slot on the bottom of the magazine and the lack of an ejection port cover, it did surprisingly well. The 1866 Yellow Boy and later Winchesters with wood forearms, ejection port dust covers, and fully enclosed magazines were definitely a step up, even without King's Patent Improvement loading gate, but it appears that the Henry's magazine with a full length slot for the magazine follower tab isn't quite the weakness that it's historically been made out to be.

My Cimarron 1873 Sporting Rifle is my favorite rifle and I would feel well armed with it should I ever need to rely on a rifle for self defense. It's about a pound lighter than the Henry, has a wood forearm, a loading gate, and less drop in the stock, thus fitting me better. I've put both the 1873 and the Henry through lever action rifle matches and find that I'm faster with the '73 because of the stock design.

That said, the 1860 Henry Rifle remains a formidable weapon in the right hands. The modern replicas hold up to 14 shots of either .44-40 WCF or .45 Colt ammunition in a reliable, easy to shoot package.

Inside My 1860 Henry Rifle

I removed the right side plate from my Cimarron Firearms Henry tonight. This was the first time I’ve done so after buying it back in March.

Side plate removal required loosening the screw which acts as the pivot for the lever, then tapping the plate out with a mallet, toward the top of the receiver. It was snug, but I was able to remove it pretty easily, unlike when I tried to get into my 1873 Sporting Rifle for the first time. (That required the use of my mill and a broken screw extractor.) Likewise, putting it back on also required the mallet to tap it back down into the dovetail. The machining is very precise.

The side plates and matching receiver recesses on Uberti Henry rifles are known to be razor sharp. Despite being careful, I still sliced my left thumb on the receiver recess. Managed to NOT bleed all over the rifle, though.

I have put a few hundred black powder handloads through the gun, both full power .44-40 WCF and reduced, .44 Henry rimfire-equivalent loads. There was zero BP fouling inside. .44-40 cases seal the chamber really well, especially with full charges.

It was dry inside so before reassembly I lubed it with FP-10 and put Kroil on the ends of the lifter spring screws, which don’t want to turn. They can be adjusted to reduce the amount of effort required to work the action but it’s already easy so I’m not going to worry about them.

Seeing how clean it was inside I don’t plan to remove the side plate more than once every several years.

Levergun Weekend

Saturday afternoon I loaded up 150 rounds of .38-40 with a 180 bullet on top of about 8.5 grains of Unique. After dinner, I loaded 100 rounds of .44-40 with a 200 grain bullet on top of the same powder charge. Bullets for both calibers were soft cast from Desperado Cowboy bullets. I mostly shoot black powder in .44-40 but still had a bunch of the DCB 200 grainers, which don't carry enough lube for BP in a rifle, so smokeless it was.

Sunday morning was my club's lever action rifle match. Even though it was Easter Sunday, we had 9 shooters. We had a couple Rossi 92s, a Cimarron 1873, a Henry Big Boy, a Marlin 1894 CB, and even a Winchester 1894 in .44 Magnum loaded with .44 Specials. I shot my Cimarron 1860 Henry with .44 Henry-equivalent black powder loads, and got some ribbing from the other guys about second hand smoke.

We started out at 10 - 12 yards, then moved back to 50. The targets were ~8" square steel plates.

I shot well, coming in 4th. I missed only one target but of course I was slower than the guys shooting mouse-fart level .38s. Also, the Henry has more drop in the stock than my 1873, which slowed me down compared to last month.

I put 55 rounds through the 1860 Henry. The .44 rimfire-level loads foul noticeably less than full-power .44 WCFs. It took only about a half dozen patches wet with moose milk to clean the bore.

The rifle's developing a nice patina on the brass receiver now.

We were done pretty early so in the afternoon I decided to replenish my supply of bullets suitable for shooting on top of black powder. So, I topped off my Lyman lead pot with some 1:20 alloy that I got from Roto Metals, and ran off a few hundred bullets in my Accurate Molds 43-215C. Hopefully, I'll be able to lube and size them this week after work.

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.

Cimarron Firearms 1860 Henry Civil War Model

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a Cimarron Firearms 1860 Henry Civil War model rifle from Buffalo Arms, the same place I got my Cimarron 1873 Sporting Rifle from two years ago. The Henry arrived at my FFL last week and I did the transfer on Thursday. Like the 1873, the Henry is chambered for .44-40 / .44 WCF. I shot it for the first time yesterday.

As shown in the above picture, a sling swivel is mounted on the stock. I got a sling from Dell's Leather Works, which came from NY to PA in about 3 days.

This shows the German silver front sight blade and the sling attachment loop on the barrel.

The rear sight is a folding ladder. When folded, it's set for 100 yards. It's then graduated out to a very optimistic 800 yards. It also has a notch on the very top which may be for 900 yards.

Most Henry replicas come with a trapdoor in the buttplate which covers a cavity in the stock that accepts a four piece cleaning rod. My rifle doesn't have that, however. I plan to pull the buttplate off and see if the stock is drilled for a cleaning rod. If so, I may swap out the buttplate.

Overall, the rifle is extremely well finished. Wood-to-metal fit is excellent and the action works smoothly (and it's getting smoother as it gets worked).

Aside from the high quality, the other initial impression is that the rifle is heavy. It weighs in around 9 pounds, partially due to the weight of the brass receiver and partially due to how the magazine tube is machine from the same piece of steel as the barrel.

In my next post I'll talk about shooting it, but I wanted to leave off with this, a facsimile of an 1860s Henry Rifle advertisement.