Continuing Saga of Micro-Grooved H&R Handi-Rifle

[leftiye]

You might as well get some more barrels fitted to your reciever while you're there. It do take a while (like all summer). Then they can treat your replacement barrel as one of the fittings. I'd send them a note specifying the kind of rifling you want (if they have it). BTW, they have a 15 dollar fitting charge on top of the 89 dollars per barrel, and they have some barrels that cost more. Watch out for their twists (check before you order)! They tried to sell me a 44 mag with 1 in 38" twist!

I've always thought that industry standard for 45 caliber was .450 bore, .458" groove. Why else do they make all of the ammo .458? .002" tolerance? What else besides a tractor tire has that much slop? Tell them gun barrels are measured in tenths, not meters! If it aint microgroove, then ask them what else has .002" deep rifling (besides a worn out barrel)! Pardon my ravings, I'd probly be a scosh piffed if it were mine!

[Misfire99]

Hi Leftiye
Yea I am a little POd but I'm sure their margins are very small. And the specs you stated is what I thought also but Gordon, in customer service, assured me he was giving me the SAAMI specs. I am not going to send SAAMI $45 to get the spec so I will take his word for it. I will ask about the twist rate on the 280 Remington before I send in the order. I have it all filled out but haven't gotten a money order yet. I don't like filling out a sheet of paper with all my personal information and credit card number. So for them I will use a Postal Money Order. This way they know it's good right away and can get everything to me at once.

My personal opinion is most companies are honest. As are most customers. But it's the dishonest ones, both companies and customers, that make it hard for us all. For example I saw a thing on another forum where a guy used gun show reloads and blew up his S&W. He wanted S&W to give him another gun. I think this is dishonest. I think the dishonest customer occurs much more often then the dishonest company. So companies, like H&R, are "gun shy" when ever they get someone like me.

But there are dishonest companies out there. I placed an order on line for some engine parts, almost $2000 worth, over a year ago. The company is still online and taking orders but they no longer except phone calls and don't answer emails. I think I am going to have to call the police on them. But I know that at $2000 is not enough for them to get off their donuts and coffee and go arrest someone for this theft. So I'm not holding my breath. If it turns out I'm wrong I will let you all know.

[38-55]

Misfire99,
I'm not trying to be rude or anything but wouldn't it be more prudent to try and match your bullet to your your barrel rather than the barrel to the bullet ? I have 3 h&r/new england arms and they all shoot just fine ( that's just the ones in 45-70). Try a little softer bullet. I actually have good luck with 21 gns of 5477 and the postell bullet. Also the lyman 458122 is a very accurate bullet with 25 gns 5477, even if it is sometimes a pita to cast...
After 12 years of being in the business I find there are dishonest customers and they are getting more common as society desinagrates... but I digress. As for dishonest companies.... well most often it's not really dishonest but they just seem to forget about problems... Always get a name and a contact number when dealing with companies.. That way when ya have to sick the law dogs on em' they have someone to look for.. Really seems to speed things up.
But back to the h&r/new england thing.... We always seemed to have problems with the .243's and the .22-50's, they just would not shoot. Everything else was good to go.
Hope everything works out for ya...
Stay safe
Calvin

[jack19512]

I would like to add also that there are just so many dishonest people today that want to blame a company for any and all problems they encounter and believe me I would not want to be a company rep and deal with these people.

Nobody today wants to accept responsibility for nothing. There was a time when someone would accidentally bump into your car and do minor damage and at the very least would leave you a note on your windshield with their contact info, but not today.

Today, the first thing on their mind is to leave the scene as quickly as possible. I personally don't think I would ever make it as a business owner. There are without a doubt some businesses that are dishonest but my GOD what the honest ones have to put up with and deal with today is something else. I could tell you a story about something that happened to me not long ago involving someone but I've ranted enough for one day.

[Scrounger]

How can you tell an honest one? Is RCBS honest, just because they have a liberal Customer Service Policy? I admit it is great to have them completely replace something of theirs when it breaks, but look a little deeper. For them to keep from going bankrupt, they have to be charging 2 to 3 times their cost for everything they sell. What about the people who buy their products and never need replacement; Did they get cheated? I admit I don't know those answers, it is a moral dilemma far too deep for me.

[38-55]

Jack 19512,
I finally had to give up being on the 'other side' of the counter. I just could not stomach the lying,ignorant customers any more. There certainly were many good folks that came in the store that I really miss but I just could not take the lies from the ignorant ones anymore... There really seems to be a movement in the industry to keep folks stupid so the manufactures can sell them more stuff that they don't need and really don't want and really can't afford.... It almost made me quit shooting... It's a shame really... That's why forums like this are such a breath of fresh air. So far I've only met one member in person but I'd certainly like to call him a friend for the rest of my life... Good folks are getting far and few between and should be cherished...
Scrounger,
Just look at rcbs's warranty as insurance that you pay for up front. Do you really expect to get all the money out of your car insurance that you pay in ? Just a thought..
Stay safe ya'll
Calvin

[Misfire99]

Hi 38-55 I agree with you up to a point. If I was just getting a bad group I would say it's the load or the bullet or both. But no bullet,in my opinion, should keyhole at fifty yards at both high and low velocities. This is the fault of the barrel. And yea I could just restrick myself to high priced jacketed bullets but there are tons of guys, for a very long time, that have been shooting cast bullets in the forty five seventy. I'm glad for you that yours shoot. Why don't you take a chamber cast or slug your bore and see what your rifling is. I'm willing to bet it's more then two thousands of an inch as are mine.

About the dishonest people in the world today. I'm one of these strange old guys that went back to school in my forties to get a collage degree. I didn't get married until I was thirty six and had kids at thirty nine. I read a lot about kids and found out that children tend to attain the same level of education as their fathers. Well I want my kids to get a university education. So I went to get one myself. Got a degree in computer science and mathematics. Made the honor role also. One day on campus I met this young man that was embittered about the state of life. He misquoted Lord Acton's "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I told him if you are going to live your life according to another mans words the lest you can do is get them correct. The correct quote is "Power tends to corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely." I then pointed out that this is painfully incorrect. " Just drive to Blackhawk, a very upscale neighborhood, at one in the morning and go for a walk. "Then drive to North Oakland, a ghetto, and go for a walk at one in the morning." Where did you feel safer??? It's the powerless that are truly corrupt. I think this is why there are so many dishonest people today. Most people are powerless in their lives. All of our rights are under attack. Most families both the father and mother need to work, sometimes at more then one job each, just to make ends meet. They then give up their children's future to the state for their education. The level of education in America is in the toilet!!! Singapore produces much more educated young people then we do. American students rank lowest in actual test scores but highest in confidence. In other words they can't produce **** but they sure feel good about it. This keeps them very low. By the time they realize that they have been screwed it's to late and all they can do to get ahead is be dishonest. They can't earn it so they try to steal it. No matter what the "IT" is.

I have real fear for this country. The middle class is dissolving. I see in a very few years that we will have a two tiered system of haves and have nots. My wife and I decided to homeschool because of this. My children work on "school work" about two to three hours a day, sometimes less. They both are about two to three years ahead of what the school system would be having them do. Silvan learning centers guarantee that they will raise your child's gpa one full point in one hour a week. The state run school system have your children for seven hours a day. What are they doing all that time??? Grade inflation is rampent. That's dishonesty. Cheating is rampent, that's dishonesty. When I was at UC Berkeley one of my classes had six hundred students. On one assignment three hundred turned in the exact same paper!!!! That means fifty percent of the students cheat!!! Fifty percent!!! And what happened?? Nothing!! They were allowed to redo the assignment.

So when you see someone that is trying to get over on some company realize they were taught that by the very system that we have to instruct our children in how to be good citizens!!! What a very expensive joke.

[38-55]

Misfire99,
I'd still bet your bullet is the issue rather than the barrel. With that said we had a few ( actually everyone we sold) .243's come back that just plain would not shoot anything. New England arms sent us replacement guns ( on our word ) but they seemed to have the same issue. We ended up refunding money or issuing store credits.. Never really did figure out the issue.
On the other subject..... Hopelessness leads folks to do some awful things... I was reared with poor folk and they always displayed dignity and pride at what they had ( with good reason ). The ones that excepted the public dole were bitter and shifty to say the least. They would not lift a finger to help/save themselves as it was "someone else's job". I pity them in a way and resent their lack of initiative... Life is what you make it...
Stay safe
Calvin
PS look for a pm from me

[jack19512]

But no bullet,in my opinion, should keyhole at fifty yards at both high and low velocities.

I would have to disagree with you to some extent. As I stated in one of my previous posts when I first started casting I had a rifle that would keyhole and I was very disappointed in shooting this rifle.

Until, I discovered I was shooting a cast and sized .308 bullet out of a .311-312 barrel. As I stated I thought the velocity was low also, but I think the bullet diameter had more to do with the keyhole than the velocity.

I don't know it all for sure but this is just what I think was happening. After I stopped sizing to .308 for this rifle and sized to .311 I've never had another keyhole since.

[Leftoverdj]

It's pretty silly to make every mistake possible with cast bullet loads and then blame the rifle, but we see that a lot.

Cast bullets are DIFFERENT! That's why we have this board. To shoot cast successfully, the bullets must match the bore, generally by being a bit oversized; the pressure must be a near match for the bullet hardness, and lube must be appropriate to the load. Violate all three, and you are guaranteed horrible results.

And it's always the rifle's fault, never that of the loader or the shooter.

If you hang around here very long, you are very unlikely to see the experienced cast bullet shooters blaming their rifles. You'll find long meticulous accounts of the things they have done to make cast bullets shoot in a given rifle. You'll read all the things that went wrong, and what it eventually took to get decent results.

It's the newbies who scream it's the rifle's fault. You'll find the ones who will listen being patiently guided step by step to success. Some won't listen, though. They want what they want, and they want if right now, and they'll whine because they can't have it.

If you want to find out what a .45-70 is capable of with cast bullets, you try one of the established accuracy loads with a moderately hard bullet. You slug your barrel, and size to .002 over. You use a decent lube, not the blue crayon so beloved of the commercial caster. You use a powder charge well known to be suitable to the bullet. That would be 13 grains of Unique, 27 grains of 5744, or 31 grains of 4198 behind a 405 grain sized .459 or .460 for most .45-70 Marlin rifles. The Lee 459-405-HB as cast of aircooled WW is about perfect. If you can't get one of those loads to shoot under 2" at 50 yards, you might have cause to complain about the barrel. If you have not tried a known accurate load, you have no one to blame but yourself.

btw, .45-70s don't have throats. Been that way from the beginning with a couple of exceptions.

[JohnH]

I don't speak to this much, too easy for it to come off as slammin'....

Some time back I had some mixed blessing results with NEF rifles, oversized bore and groove diameters, and numerous mechanical problems. The final solution was easy, I got rid of 'em and moved to a higher quality product. First barrel I had for this high quality product wouldn't shoot cast for beans, I spent a year and a 1000 rounds to prove it to myself. Shot jacketed fine. Traded that barrel to a fella that wanted a jacketed bullet shooter, and recieved a great cast boolit shooter in return. Picked up another rifle along the way that is a good cast boolit gun too. I have a mil surp that shoots quite satisfactorily as well.

Part of why I shed my NEF was as a result of meeting a number of people that were having similar problems. Now here's the truth of the matter for me, I don't think it's possble to build a rifle that sells for under $250 and have anything worth having. Does that mean NEF is making a bad product? NO, it means that their product cannot be held to the same standards as a Remingtin, or Savage, or TC, other high quality manufactuer or any well designed mil surp. If you're not satisfied, sell it, get something you are satisfied with and stop doing business with 'em.

Overall, every NEF I had would shoot cast and shoot it well, but not without a lot of sweat and tears, (there was 1 exception of 4 guns nad 5 barrels) and not without wondering when the next time the rifle was going to break would be. I got out of 'em, much to the betterment of my sanity, might work for you too.

[longbow]

Missfire99:

I have to agree with the folks talking boolit diameter and suitability with the rifle. I had a Mauser that had been converted to .308 that wouldn't shoot a Lyman 31141 well at any velocity with any powder until I gas checked it. Even with very light loads it would keyhole at 50 yards.

Once I gas checked it I got good accuracy with several powders and very good accuracy with 22 grs. IMR 4227.

I had a Marlin 1895 .45-70 with microgroove barrel that shot everything I put into it well with black or smokeless. Mostly I shot the Lyman 385 gr. round nose and Lee 405 gr. flat point - no problems with either.

I have a Marlin 1894 in .44 mag and shoot cast all the time... but it has a somewhat oversize barrel and I get horrible accuracy with any cast bullet I have tried if it is under 0.432" diameter.

It took a while but after I collected a few fired boolits I was finding gas cutting on the bases - yes I shoot mainly plain based boolits. Once I found that I upped the boolit diameter and the problems went away.

Just a thought.

Longbow

[snuffy]

or 31 grains of 4198 behind a 405 grain sized .459 or .460 for most .45-70 Marlin rifles. The Lee 459-405-HB as cast of aircooled WW is about perfect. If you can't get one of those loads to shoot under 2" at 50 yards, you might have cause to complain about the barrel. If you have not tried a known accurate load, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Exactly! That was what was recommended here for me to try in my 45/70 H&R buffalo classic. here's the results;



That's at 100 yds, with a 3X9 scope. My tired old eyes aren't good enough for aperture sights at 100, 50, yes, but not 100. That's the lee .459-405 HBFP cast of 20-1 pure lead to tin. Sized to .458, lubed with NRA formula alox. A little tinkering will get it down closer to 1". 31.5 grains of IMR 4198 gave me 1439-1435 fps over 2 5 shot groups.

I'm wondering if what you're calling microgroove rifling, is actually only the H&R shallow rifling. As it is in my buff classic. It is actually better IMHO that deeper rifling for cast boolits.

[Misfire99]

Maybe I haven't layed out what I got clear enough. The bore is .4545 my bullets are .4585. This is not undersized. And I tried them at both the lowest trap door velocity and at the highest marlin lever action velocity. It had the best group at the lowest velocity but they were all keyholed. At the highest velocity I had an eleven inch group with one shot off the paper. I know I mentioned it but I also shoot a Sharps Falling Block in forty five seventy. I do have experience shooting this round with cast bullets. You got to realize I have a rifle that has rifling that is two thousands of an inch deep. That is half of what it should be.

You guys are welcome to your opinions but I really don't need to be led by the hand step by step. I share my experiences and value your opinions but please try to pay attention to the information that is presented. I'm not shooting bullets that are undersized. I am shooting a rifle that has undersized rifling. I count the number of rifles I shoot, reload and cast for by the dozens because its quicker that way. I have well over sixty rifles. This is the only time I felt that any problem I was having was from the rifle. And when I get the new barell. Hopefully it will have rifling a little deeper then two thousands of an inch deep. And as I said before I thought it was microgroove because it had so little rifling. But H&R assures me that it is not. But rather has cut rifling. Well they didn't cut very deep on this one!!

I really wish that you guys that say here is my target, my rifle shoots just fine it can't be the rifle, would slug your bores and find out what the depth of your rifling is. Without doing that you aren't saying anything other then you have a rifle that shoots. I can post a target from my other forty five seventy and say see my other rifle shoots so it can't be the H&R but this is brain dead at best. And I have had PMs from a guy that sold H&R rifles. He tells me of some troubles that H&R had with some rifles not shooting. I think that they try to get to many barrels out of their tooling. They take it right to the limit. This is not good.

[38-55]

Misfire 99,
Sounds to me like they got a 45 lc barrel mixed up on the line... Might just try a 45 lc bullet sized to .455 or .454 for grins and see what happens.. Just a thought. Heck you may even want to voice this concern to new england arms... May really, truly be a qc issue.
Stay safe
Calvin
PS It's been my experience that ALL rifles are a law unto themselves

[jack19512]

I would have to pretty much agree with JohnH. I have had 3 H&R rifles so far. A 17 Mach II Sportster, a .223 Ultra, and a Buffalo Classic 45/70. Of the 3 rifles I only have the Buffalo Classic left.

The 17 Mach II Sportster I could not get to shoot consistent no matter what I tried. I had one person that kept on insisting I had to rest the receiver on shooting bags exactly the same way each shot to cure my problem and I kept telling him, UH, I don't take shooting bags with me when I hunt, DUH!!!!!. So, Misfire99 I do understand your frustration.


The .223 Ultra wasn't as bad as the 17 Mach II Sporter but basically the same problem, just not as bad. The Buffalo Classic I am pretty happy with so it is a keeper. The only thing going for the H&R rifles is the price, and that's no bargain if they don't work for you. I replaced both of the H&R rifles with Savage rifles and haven't regretted it for one second.

I do know that some of the H&R rifles will shoot very well, I also know some of them never shoot right and that is probably why my local gun shop has a lot of used ones in stock. I think it just a quality control problem. I did the best I could and slugged my 45/70 barrel and here is what I got, it may be off a little but it's as close as I can get. Groove diameter is 4575 and land diameter is 452.

[snuffy]

I did the best I could and slugged my 45/70 barrel and here is what I got, it may be off a little but it's as close as I can get. Groove diameter is 4575 and land diameter is 452.

I just re-did mine, I didn't do the bore diameter the first time. As it was before, the bore diameter is .453, the land or groove is .457. Or do I have that backwards. In my thinking the bore is the smallest measurement, the rifling cutter makes a grove that is larger? In any case, my rifling is actually .002 also. But I certainly would not call it microgroove rifling, only very shallow groove. My boolits are sized .458, I have a .459 sizer die on order to try going .002 over groove diameter.

In any case, if mine will shoot, so should yours.

[longbow]

My 1894 Marlin .44 mag. microgroove barrel slugs at 0.425" bore and 0.431" groove so 0.003" deep rifling. A little deeper than I thought but that's what I measured. As mentioned, I also had a Marlin 1895 in microgroove and had no trouble with cast boolits in it. Never slugged it to find out what the rifling depth was because I had no need. Wish I still had that one!

Both my Marlins have (had) very smooth shiny bores and well defined rifling though.

I would agree that if your H&R is at 0.0025" deep rifling it is shallow.

Have you examined any recovered boolits? If they are stripping or getting bad gas cutting it should be pretty obvious.

If your bore isn't smooth and shiny with crisp rifling the barrel is obviously bad. Even if it is smooth and shiny it could have a tight spot which swages the boolit down and results in gas cutting after the tight spot. Pushing a soft lead slug end to end will tell you if there is a tight spot.

How many grooves? My microgroove guns have both been 12 groove. Seems like Marlin at least decided that shallow rifling needs lots of lands to bite into the boolit.

[jjamna]

Let us know when you find out something. I am getting curious as to what is going on. I have my thoughts but I have no experience with a 45-70. I have a 30-30 and 35 Rem both have micro groove barrels and shoot ok. NO Keyholes though.

[PPpastordon]

Misfire99;
Thanks for your post. This has been interesting. The thing to remember is that each firearm does seem to be a law unto itself.

The finest shooting .45-70 I have ever owned was a NEF. It shot well enough that I traded it for a Ruger #1 in .45-70 when it shot my ammo and the Ruger's ammo (he had reloads and 2 factory loads) far better than the Ruger shot any of the ammo. My current NEF is no where near as good; but it satisfactory. My second best was an old, re-barreled rolling block.

Much testing of the Ruger never got it to shoot as well as that particular NEF.

My only previous "key-holing with cast boolit" rifle turned out to have a rough, inconsistent diameter bore. A friend had a bore-scope. That bore looked like Grand Canyon! However, with a foolish amount of time at hand-lapping, that barrel would eventually shoot cast suitably.

All said, I have no idea what the ultimate problem is with your firearm. However, if you are a man up to the challenge, I am sure it can be made (re-made?) to shoot - to some degree. However, the best I ever got with that Ruger before selling it was certainly "minute of deer" (well, about 4+", as best I remember) out to my 100 yard range. I expected better!

Let us know the "final chapter."