Yes, thats what I was referring to. Easy way to check on exposed hammer gun is to feel for the hammer being moved farther back as the trigger is pulled thru.
I dont mind a 3 lb smooth trigger but 5+ and gritty puts my teeth on edge! And by design!!! Good grief , well at least its easy to work on. Thanks for taking one apparent and pics!
“You don’t practice until you get it right. You practice until you can’t get it wrong.” Jason Elam, All-Pro kicker, Denver Broncos
A smooth sub 3 pound trigger is the stuff of dreams for me. The only guns I have that are less than 3 pounds is a Ruger GP100 right at 3# and Savage 110L at about 2.25#, and that feels crazy light to me. Most of mine fall in the 4-5# range, and I'm fine with that. It's a pretty short list of 7# plus though. I have this Henry, and an old Steven single shot shotgun. I can't think of anything else this bad. My GP100 double action trigger is about the same as the Henry. My other Henry, a big boy, has a fine trigger, between 4-5 pounds. I'm fine with heavier triggers, but when you can see yourself shaking from the force of squeezing off a shot, you are over the top.
megasupermagnum
I appreciate what you're doing with the pics and tutorial. I'm closely following this thread because I've decided to keep the gun. The Henry customer service people I've dealt with have been nothing but polite and they sent me another shipping label...which I don't plan to use. I'm thinking that before long you and maybe some other folks are going to get a solution sorted out. The guy at Wolff springs said they'd be looking into a spring kit for this gun but in the meantime count me in for one of whatever you find that works. I've heard the horror stories from people that worked on other brands of single shots with slave pins, flying springs, etc. and am relieved to see this gun is much simpler.
Once again, the people I've communicated with at Henry from Mr. Imperato on down have been outstanding....they just need to straighten out a designer/lawyer or whoever. It's such a nice little rifle I'm gonna ride it out till it works.
I did some more fiddling, and there is no good way to pin the components to the side of the frame. Nothing worth taking a picture of. Holding them up by hand, it is clear as day how it works. There are two notches on the hammer. The first is large, a safety, not a part of the trigger per se. The second is a typical notch, and while I'm sure it's angled for safety, it's not that bad. What I did find interesting, is I took the big hammer spring out entirely, and you can tune the pre load of the small spring with the stock bolt. I found when cranked way in, just the small spring, which its only purpose is to hold the stock bolt from coming loose best I can tell, is enough to function. I'm going to try lighting off some empty and primed cases tomorrow, but this gives me high hopes that a lighter spring will work. I can confirm that the hammer does not move at all until the trigger breaks. This also tells me that it may be worth tossing the small spring entirely. It adds very little throughout the swing of the hammer with the stock screwed in normally, but adds a ton of pressure at full cock. I've ordered the springs from Grainger, but they won't be here for two weeks. With a lighter spring, you can actually feel the trigger pull now. It is GRITTY as can be. I'll have to do some stoning, and may even have to touch up the actual trigger engagement.
Last edited by megasupermagnum; 09-12-2018 at 09:47 PM.
Thanks for posting the photos and information - it's a big help in understanding how it all works. I she a feeling that enough people call Wolff to see if they have springs, they'll put together a kit. It will be interesting to hear how the springs work that you get from Granger/
I've got another update...I got another e-mail from the Henry lady and she convinced me to send it back again and it's on a brown truck now. She said she would personally follow through on this issue. Fingers crossed here....
On the plus side....I've never before encountered customer service people that have worked this hard to make things right. Hats off to Henry on that front.
When I ordered the springs it said it would be about 2 weeks to ship. Today i got a tracking number, and they are expected tomorrow. We will know if a lighter hammer spring will work this weekend. That would be cool if Henry could fix it too. A free trigger job, plus a lighter spring would be a good day.
I read on another forum (can’t remember where) that the smaller of the two hammer springs is for the rebounding hammer. You can remove it entirely to improve the trigger pull, and the hammer will still rebound.
"Experience is a series of non-fatal mistakes"
Disarming is a mistake free people only get to make once...
I did, trigger went from 6lbs 2oz to 5lbs 8oz. I haven't noticed any problems, hammer still rebounds. Ignition 100% and I had a can of old reloads, Henry was pierceing primers 30% of the time (not a hot load) that problem went away. Pull is still rough at beginning then smooth and breaks clean.
Questions, just 'cause I'm interested in any new single-shot:
This "rebounding hammer" - - - - does it only rebound after you've released the trigger? Hope so. The hammer should back up the firing pin after ignition, so the pressure doesn't try to drive the pin back out, or extrude the cup metal into the firing pin hole. Hopefully what they mean is a hammer-block of some kind, like S&W revolvers? The pre-1900 Hopkins & Allen falling-blocks had a true rebounding hammer. The hammer spring geometry actually retracted the hammer about 1/8" the instant after it had struck its' blow. They sold some medium frames in .32-40, but you couldn't use smokeless loads in them because of the rebounding hammer.
Is the lockup a sliding bolt like the T/C? I'm not too fond of that idea. Better if they had copied swinging bolt design of the Savage 219, which won't ever "shoot loose".
I guess it's good that we've still got a supplier of a breakopen rifle that is robust enough to take .308 pressures at a modest price. Slick up the trigger and it may be a worthwhile offering. (BTW I don't think that the $450 list price is out of line in this day and age for a gun with decently fitted wood furniture.)
Cognitive Dissident
Thanks for the review. I'm going to get one myself.
Ok, I wish I could show better pictures, but I'll try and explain how the hammer works. There is a metal bar between the hammer spring, and the hammer itself. The metal bar has lobes on it, that mate up to the hammer. With spring pressure, this holds the hammer off of the firing pin, whether the trigger is pulled, or not. On the trigger, is a notch, similar to a halfcock, so that the hammer cannot strike the firing pin, unless the hammer is fully cocked, and trigger pulled. The "rebounding hammer" is really just an automatic halfcock.
Anyway, I got the springs today. I put the lightest 31# spring in, no smaller spring, and got 5 out of 5 primed cases went off. Trigger pull is significantly lighter. Next step is to take it to the range to really test reliability. I did try and stone the trigger some. One source of grit is the trigger return spring. It is a cone shaped spring, and it slides on the trigger housing. I stoned the surface it slides on, but it's just dumb if you ask me. Clearly a cost savings step, so they didn't have to drill another hole and put a proper spring in. I found that by turning the spring so the end coil was facing up, it was much smoother. I tried stoning the hammer, but am afraid to go too far and make it unsafe. It is now very similar to my other Henry. It goes tick, then a clean break. I'm ok with this, and hopefully it will break in more with use. I wish I could give you guys numbers as far as pull weight, but comparing to my other guns, it's now somewhere just north of 4#, which is just fine by me. It feels about half of what it used to be.
By the way, I don't think the small spring has any bearing on the hammer rebounding. It is too short. It has a bit of tension at rest, but stacks heavily at full cock. I'm just going to run without it.
OK, I understand how they did it, even if I don't approve. I have to assume that they've engineered the firing pin retention well enough to take the back-pressure by itself. The feature may make reading pressure from primers a little different, though. But it eliminates a linkage to back the hammer off the pin so the gun will open freely, which probably saves some cost in mfg.
Cheers!
Cognitive Dissident
I don't think you will ever get the chance to own one then. None of the lower cost rifles are even close to a 3# crisp trigger. This Henry never will be, the Ruger american isn't, the Savage axis isn't, the H&R's weren't. We should definitely expect a trigger pull less than the weight of the gun, but a crisp 3# trigger is too much to ask from a gun such as this. The T/C encore rolls off the line with about a 5# trigger, and those cost more than twice what this Henry does. What does that leave you with. MAYBE a Ruger #1?
i'm not at all concerned about the stock trigger - it's all about what can be done to make a 5-7# trigger lots better. there are fixit tricks and kits for bolt actions rugers and savages, and i've own both brands and it was easy to get under 3# for both. but break action guns like handi's (had 4 of them) and henry's are just a diff'rent class of trigger system and while the handi was WYSIWYG, i'd had hopes for the henry. too bad.
After coming this far, I can say I stand by what my original post said. If you didn't like the H&R trigger, you won't like the Henry. H&R was better out of the box. I won't say what's possible with Henry's, but the list of gunsmiths that will do a trigger job on a Henry is... well I don't know of any. H&R's can be smoothed and turned down to 3#'s. I'll agree with you, Henry dropped the ball. H&R built a better rifle, for cheaper. Everybody is just memorized by the fancy wood of the Henry. What do you do. I own the rifle now, modified it, and am still happy with it.
Last edited by megasupermagnum; 09-17-2018 at 07:39 PM.
all the handi's had surface hardened sears. no gunsmith would mess with them. you could only at best polish them as filing could, might, and always would bugger their temper, making them unsafe and require replacing. been there, done that. i dunno squat about the tactile feel of a henry s/s trigger, but so far things don't sound good and that will cut into henry sales sooner or later. they'll prolly still sell off a gaggle of them anyway. henry's fancy wood selling point is like a judging a book by its cover.
I wish I had one to tinker on, I am betting a decent trigger can be had from these rifles.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |