.45 colt Henry rifle. (Brass reciever.)

[44man]

My friend bought one of these and it is fun to shoot. Trouble is that it will not extract all the brass. The loads are light and the fingernail of my little finger will pull the brass out of the chamber. I did find a piece of crud in the cut for the extractor but we haven't shot it again yet. I wanted to take it apart to inspect everything but it is not possible to loosen any screws without damage. I think they are glued in. Heat can't be applied because of the coating on the brass. I thought of heating a brass or copper rod the size of the screw head and transfering some heat to the screw.
Has anyone ever taken one of these things apart?
It's a Uberti

[shooter575]

44Man I have had to change the extractor on two of them. 44-40 Mine was my fault,A buddy had a new one.Had maybe 1-200 rounds of BP loads through it. It just quit extracting. Thing looked OK. Changed it and it works fine.
Brownells has the parts.I have tried a aftermarket one and it aint worth a damm! Just aint the same.
Got to get the sideplate off.Screws were not a prob with mine.Sideplate is a real tight fit.I used a rubber mallet to wack off side. There are 2 pins in the bolt.Need a pin punch smaller than 1/16,I made one out of a piece of drill rod.
I also found a exploded drawing on line. I dont have that info here.Will find link and post. If you are going to do this yourself I can make up some better instructions and hints as the extractor does need some fitting. Your are going to need a dremel tool.

[KCSO]

Check your brass. The various 45 Colt brass have anywhere from no rim undercut to plenty. I use only Starline brass in my lever gun as it has the biggest rim and deepest undercut. Old W/W brass will alsways let one or two from a magazine slip by. Remember 45 Colt wasn't an original caliber for these guns for a reason.

[44man]

Shooter, I would appreciate any instructions

[shooter575]

Ok 44man. Here is my atempt at explaning how to do this.I had to go find the drawing and I even pulled out my Henry to refresh the old grey matter.Before doing anything I would check out your brass like KCSO said. Whole lot easyer than following my directions.

Here is a link to schematic for the henry.


http://www.e-gunparts.com/productschem.asp?chrMasterModel=4180z1860%20HENRY% 20REPLICA

Remove right cover
Using a pin to push out lever screw will keep springs in place
remove left cover
remove both toggles and pins
drift out"firing pin stop" #104 It is located in breech block just
above toggle pin.This will release "firing pin extension" firing pin,spring.remove this assy
Hammer is sorta in the way for this.If you need to remove hammer try using a under sized pin to replace screw to gain that little bit needed.It is a pain to get hammer,spring and link all back together.
remove the breech block
drift out extractor pin. This is sort a pain as it is on the radius part of breech block. Had to rig it up in a bench vise
install new extractor I didnt [forgot]buy any new pins so I used a 16 or 17 ga
wire brad.They work fine. The rear of extractor will stick up about 3/32 proud of breech block. I just ground this off flush after instaling.Just dont over heat.Then I cold blue breech block to match.
The drift must be smaller than 1/16 on them little pins.I made one
with a shank of .050 drill.
Put er all back together.

Brownells has parts.

[KCSO]

One more important item with 45 Colt lever guns. Since the 45 case is not a bottle neck the chambers on these guns tapers some. This ranges from almost unnoticable in an Uberti 73 to case bulgy big in a Rossi 92. If you don't anneal your cases (Starline are the hardest) you will get gas leakage and smears of powder smoke ony your cases and a dirty chamber and action. With FFg in a 92 the smoke was coming back into the action. If you anneal the cases this stops completely. Since I shoot only low pressure loads in my 45 Colt rifles i just put 100 cases in a frying pan in the oven at 500 for 1 /2Hour and then take tham out and dump them in cold water. I have never had one of these cases come apart and they don't leak, even in the loose chambered 92.

[44man]

KCSO, thank you for the instructions. I loaded some rounds for it with 7 grs. of Unique and have to shoot it to see if the crud I took out of the slot was the problem. I have been feeding an empty through it and it works great so far. The crud was a flat piece that held up the extractor and kept it from reaching behind the rim. I picked it out with a pin. It came from the factory with this in there.
When we shot it, we didn't notice any burnt powder on the brass but the chamber is quite large compared to my revolver. John will never shoot any black powder through it so that won't be a problem.

[shooter575]

44man, I hope that super cleaning fixes you up.

I shoot only black in my 44-40 Henry. One nice thing about that case in being so thin at the mouth it expands and seals off the chamber better than the 45 LC. I get very little fouling behind the chamber.Some guys loose a lot of brass.I just neck size and they seem to last a long time.I destroy most of mine by steping on em

[44man]

I ran 10 shots through it today and it worked perfectly. Every case came right out so I don't have to pull the gun apart. The first time we shot it only 1 out of 10 would come out. I am glad I looked carefully in the cut for the extractor. Problem solved and I will keep the instructions for the future. I also dropped the fired cases from the Henry into my Vaquero to see if they expanded more. They drop right in. I only neck size my revolver brass too. Thanks guys.

[Griff]

44man,
Try this site: http://www.marauder.homestead.com/Rifles.html, it's mainly for the '73 & '66, but the Henry ain't all that different. He's also got descriptions and instructions for various other cowboy type guns. His methods of smoothing the action on the Rossi '92 is almost just like what I've been doing for over 20 years; and he explains it better than I could!
For parts: Make sure you go here to compare: www.vtigunparts.com (Uberti replacement parts) and much cheaper than Gun Parts Inc.