Just got a Henry H011 for cowboy black powder need load advice

[Mach_Cat]

Hello
Just got a Henry H011 ‘original Henry” in 44-40
Plan for use with black powder loads but also modern loads.
Since this is a slight bottle neck case can I use a harder lead or must it be soft lead only? What weight boolit for black powder is recommended and what load of powder.
Magnum pistol primers?
I load lots of 45lc but this is the 1st black powder I will load. I would like to use the boolit for black and modern powder if possible. Shooting this only in the rifle.
Best boolit dia for the Henry?

Thanks Ed

[sharps4590]

Just get the SPG black powder loading manual. Follow its directions and you should have a good load pretty much out the gate.

[Wayne Smith]

Is the Henry a .427 groove or a .429 groove? The "original" Henry was .427 but all over the place I understand. Modern Uberti/Petersoli barrels are .429, as are Ruger, I believe.

[country gent]

My new original hennery slugs at .4278 and the chamber is cut accordingly. the neck portion of the chamber is snub on rounds loaded with a .430 grn bullet. I'm currently working with 2 bullets a 210 rnfp solid base and a 222 grn Hollow based rnfp. These I purchased from BACO they are 20-1.

As to what you can use let your rifle tell you what it wants. Mine is fussy as to OAL a little to long and lifter bolock cant raise up to short and a second round is also on the lifter block and in the tube locking it up

[emmett22405]

Cat in general for smokeless loads bullet should be at least 1 to 2 thousand over your groove diam and can be soft (say 20-1) or hard alloy. For bp loads can be just under groove if a soft alloy up to 12 BHN or larger as the bullet will bump up over bp to fill the groove diam BUT you need a larger grease groove and black powder lube. Of course you can buy a mold such as the RCBS 44-40 mold (200 grain) that will work for both black and smokeless or order a custom bp mold from say Accurate Molds Many commercial casters offer up to .430 or even .431 bullets which are better used in a 44 mag. the magma molds used by most commercial casters (usually hard alloy also) have the crimp groove in the right place for 200 or 240 grain bullets to giver an OAl length to cycle in a 44-40 rifle. A large pistol primer is all you need. Google John Kort and 44-40 and read his extensive, well written posts on shooting the 44-40 with bp and smokeless or black loads molds etc.

[cajun shooter]

I've been shooting the 44wcf since the early 70's and I shoot nothing but BP. The very first thing you need to do is slug your barrel so that you will not be guessing as to what size bullet to use. So many people are shooting the wrong size bullets with this caliber. A lot of it comes from misinformation even from this forum.
John Kort and I are good friends and have posted many pages about this caliber. We both have designed bullets for it that are made by Accurate Molds. Mine is credited to my SASS handle of "Fairshake".
The original Winchester rifles were made with .425-.427 bores. When Uberti started making the repo 73 rifles they were made with the proper .427 bores which is the correct one for this caliber.
Many makers like Marlin decided to save time and money started making the 44wcf barrels the same size as the 44 mag bbls and this is when things went crazy as you had many gun people shooting the .428 bullets down .431-.432 bores and made out of hard alloys. There are runs of the Uberti guns that have the larger bores, this also holds true for the Colt and other makers of the revolvers. I have owned 3 of the Uberti rifles and revolvers that have the true .427 bores.
If you are going to shoot BP then I suggest you buy or cast your own bullets that are around 10 BHN and have the proper sized lube grooves with a good BP lube.
You don't have to Google John Kort or anyone else. All the info is available on this forum with simple search.
I would suggest that you find it and save it. If I may be of any help with anything, please contact me. Later David