I had been eyeballing these for a spell and after watching one on Gunbroker sell for $1675, I picked this one up for MSRP ($1200.00) off Gunsinternational.
Chambered for 223/556 (manual states it’s rated for both) with a (fairly fat/stiff) 1:9 twist 16.5” barrel the muzzle is threaded 1/2X28 for either a muzzle brake or a suppressor, mine here is wearing my Gemtech Titanium Trek.
It comes with a weaver rail mounted on the receiver for a scope mount and I put a Leupold 3X9X40 in some “quick realease” rings on it for initial sight in and messing around.
So far I’ve run about 200 rounds through it with no problems.
I ran some of my hunting handloads and about a hundred or so rounds of Russian steel cased (both lacquer coated and the poly performance stuff) and so far there haven’t been any problems with feeding, firing or function.
The action is fairly slick with a moderate lever throw that’s easy to run from the shoulder.
The receiver is made from an aluminum alloy of some sort and comes with a matte finish that appears to be fairly durable but time will tell.
Speaking of the receiver, it appears (based on my measurements) that Henry uses the same receiver for both their 308 and 223 versions of this platform.
Even the magazines are the same (the 223 has a spacer up front to offset the difference in cartridge overall length).
Reference the magazines, the rifle comes with a single five round box magazine and (sadly) I don’t think a larger capacity feeding device can be made to work in one of these.
When the lever is opened far enough to feed the next cartridge, the trigger guard extends over the base of the magazine.
Anything longer than the standard 5 round mag would prevent the lever from moving far enough to pick up the next round.
As far as accuracy goes, it shot fairly well from the bench with my handloads turning around 1 inch groups and the Russian steel cased shooting just a little bit worse at about 1.5-1.75” groups.
Handloads
Russian Steel Cased
Pros are it’s light, fast handling, accurate, cheap to shoot and balances well with a can on it.
Cons are that that the entire front part of the rifle (from forend tip thru the receiver) gets hot during extended firing sessions.
That aluminum receiver acts like a heat sink and pulls heat back from the barrel all the way to the hammer in fairly short order.
Although I won’t call it a “con” I do dearly wish they would have pressed some checkering into the forearm and wrist of the stock (like they do on their standard models).
I do appreciate the stock being laminated and the color appeals to me; that said, it’s still quite warm here in Arizona and fat old men tend to sweat in this heat and the rifle is slick enough as it is without my natural juices compounding the issue.
All that said, I really like the gun.
It’s fairly expensive for what it is but if you have a palsy for leverguns (like I do) it certainly fills a hole in the “rifle” caliber lever action portion of a collection.
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