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The 1860 Henry


Alamosa Bill

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12 hours ago, Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933 said:

I had an OLD Henry with lots of parts that are no longer made and the parts in it were so far out of spec it was basically useless.  I was going to make it into a Transitional Henry so I bought the Transitional forearm and loading gate before I found out the Henry was junk.  I had a .32-20 Uberti 73 I had converted to .32 Mag but decided to convert it to something else.  So I pulled the barrels and started measuring.  The Henry frame is longer in the front than the 66 or 73 so I cut off the front of the Henry frame and made a spacer out of it to space and seat the barrel properly.  Turned out to be a bigger PITA that I thought it would be.  The biggest problem, and something I had not anticipated, was the center to center distance between the mag tube and barrel on the Henry was much closer together that the 73 with its separate mag tube.  Finally got everything together and working.  It is an interesting piece.

 

That IS interesting.   If anyone ever organizes a "Frankengun" shoot, this would clearly qualify!

Tempted to start a separate thread on that concept, but I won't.  :)

 

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Several years ago I bought this PUMA new which has a brass receiver and a stainless steel 24" barrel.  I have never fired this rifle..

 

Rossi   PUMA M92    66062164    MODEL 92    45 Long Colt   Lever Action  Brass/Stainless Stl

 

           Puma 92 Octagon Stainless / Brass 24" 45 LC NEW! Factory New & unfired Puma

M-92 Stainless Octagon barrel/ Brass receiver lever-action rifle in .45 Long Colt.  24" Octagon

SS bbl w/ adjustable rear & steel blade front sights. Straight hardwood rifle stock. part # 52012

           

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 10/18/2021 at 4:00 PM, Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933 said:

Probably depends of how early.  The teens and twentys maybe.  Henrys weren't that valuable back then and the factories still loaded ammo.  The old west rimfires were all pretty much discontinued by the mid-1930s.  The .44 Henry being rimfire could not, as a practical matter, be reloaded and the ammo was gone by the forties.

The Henry in one of my favorite westerns filmed at Old Tucson Studio, Arizona, where William Holden is using what I would consider an original Henry, yes?

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1 hour ago, Nimble Fingers SASS# 25439 said:

The Henry in one of my favorite westerns filmed at Old Tucson Studio, Arizona, where William Holden is using what I would consider an original Henry, yes?

 

That was "Arizona".

 

image.png.000b49832af8d48f18e31763e2d9cdbf.png

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6 minutes ago, Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L said:

 

That was "Arizona".

 

image.png.000b49832af8d48f18e31763e2d9cdbf.png

Yup, that is why I put Arizona in commas above, could remember Jean Arthur's name but she was the one that gave him the rifle for the cattle drive.  Perhaps there were more rim fire shells in 1939, or they actually took an original and "changed" it so it could fire.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just saw that episode a couple of days ago.  Took awhile to figure it out.  Since it was 1960 there were no reproductions.  Using original 73s allowed that them to use 5 in 1 blanks and 73s back then were dirt cheap.

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On 11/5/2021 at 4:18 AM, WOLFY said:

I’ve always wanted an italian Henry.  They’re never in .44 spl.

I have talked to several gunsmiths over the years about sleeving a 45 or smithing a 44/40 to turn it in to a 44 Special .

I never found anyone willing to do it or even saying it could be done .

Uberti did build a very few 44 Specials a long time ago .

I have sighed different  petitions over the years to ask Uberti to make them for one more run with all of the pre-sold  with No luck again .

I think Coffenmaker has a 44 special in a Henry .

I did find one online in Australia a few years ago .

But it was like 2k for the rifle and another 2k to bring it back to America .

I passed on it .

Rooster 

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A few years ago I had a steel frame Uberti in .44 Spec.

My smith only so slighty filed the front of the carrier to reliably load and shoot my favorite cowboy cartridge .44 Colt.

Holds 15 rounds in the tube & is highly accurate even at longer distances up to 200 yards.

Before that I had brass frame Uberti Henry in .44-40 that the same smith modified to shoot the .44 Colt by setting back the barrel.

After the mod. the tube only held 14 rounds of .44 Colt.

A pard sweet talked me to sell it to him.

This smith did the same job to a friend of mine's Henry and also to two ASP 73s originally of .44-40 cal.

The mods needed to alter these lifter type lever guns from .44-40 to a straight .44 cal. cartridge - either .44 Spec. or .44 Colt - in addition to setting back the barrel are limited.

Like the barrel the tube and the lifter will have to be shortened, and some spacer fitted into the carrier housing to adjust the shorter housing to the length of the straight cartridge.

Long Johns Wolf

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I also have a Rossi brass rifle in 357, bought from a dealer in Texas around 15 years ago.  Looks good but shoots terrible , doesn't feed right, stovepipes , and jams constantly. I changed the ejector spring , modified the interior side plates and lightened the main spring. Nothing helped , should probably send it to Steve Young,never got around to it , shoot my 73's instead.

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Aline MacMahon carried a Henry in the 1955 James Stewart Western "The Man From Laramie".

Notice the tab -- It wasn't loaded!

 

h.jpg

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The two (one in 44-40, and one in 45) that Coffinmaker built me were inspired by this one, converted by a Peruvian gunsmith in the late 1880s

No engraving (that would be nice!), loading gate (a copy of the original Henry's Patent Loading  Gate -- like a hinged door), barrel shortened at the point where it goes from octagon-to-round.
It handles like a dream with a bit shorter barrel, and still holds 10 44-40s, and the 45 holds even more C45S cartridges.

He's a master!

--Dawg

Peruvian%20Transitional%20Henry.jpg

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On 10/19/2021 at 9:25 AM, Frontier Lone Rider said:

Several years ago I bought this PUMA new which has a brass receiver and a stainless steel 24" barrel.  I have never fired this rifle..

 

Rossi   PUMA M92    66062164    MODEL 92    45 Long Colt   Lever Action  Brass/Stainless Stl

 

           Puma 92 Octagon Stainless / Brass 24" 45 LC NEW! Factory New & unfired Puma

M-92 Stainless Octagon barrel/ Brass receiver lever-action rifle in .45 Long Colt.  24" Octagon

SS bbl w/ adjustable rear & steel blade front sights. Straight hardwood rifle stock. part # 52012

           

Wish I had bought the blue version in .44 mag and the remove the forearm so, I think, look like the rifles John Wayne held up in the Commancheros I still will look to try and recreate that one mainly because it was in his movie and I like it. 

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1 hour ago, Prairie Dawg, SASS #50329 said:

The two (one in 44-40, and one in 45) that Coffinmaker built me were inspired by this one, converted by a Peruvian gunsmith in the late 1880s

No engraving (that would be nice!), loading gate (a copy of the original Henry's Patent Loading  Gate -- like a hinged door), barrel shortened at the point where it goes from octagon-to-round.
It handles like a dream with a bit shorter barrel, and still holds 10 44-40s, and the 45 holds even more C45S cartridges.

He's a master!

--Dawg

 

Even the case is cool!

 

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I,m looking into brazing in a steel sleeve and recutting the chamber to .44spl, however the remaining material might be too thin... (even if it,s only supporting the back half of the .44spl cartridge).

 

Anyone know how difficult it is to remove the barrel/mag assembly?

 

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Joel McCrea used a real Henry rifle in "Union Pacific" from 1939.  It was very shiny; maybe nickled?  I suspect it came out of a musem; CB DeMille had that kind of clout.  (The golden spike used at the ceremony to mark the end of the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the film was the same spike actually used in the May 10, 1869, event, on loan from Stanford University.)

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On 10/19/2021 at 9:25 AM, Frontier Lone Rider said:

Several years ago I bought this PUMA new which has a brass receiver and a stainless steel 24" barrel.  I have never fired this rifle..

 

Rossi   PUMA M92    66062164    MODEL 92    45 Long Colt   Lever Action  Brass/Stainless Stl

 

           Puma 92 Octagon Stainless / Brass 24" 45 LC NEW! Factory New & unfired Puma

M-92 Stainless Octagon barrel/ Brass receiver lever-action rifle in .45 Long Colt.  24" Octagon

SS bbl w/ adjustable rear & steel blade front sights. Straight hardwood rifle stock. part # 52012

           

If it was in .44 mag I would be making an offer even though I would have preferred blued instead of stainless. 

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On 11/25/2021 at 11:00 PM, Abilene, SASS # 27489 said:

Bringing back this topic, as I was hunting for this pic before, but only just found it.  Looks like a '73 painted gold

 

 

mega-seltenDan-Blocker-Bonanza-Hoss-Cartwright.jpg

 

Looking at this image, at first I thought it was Henry Rifle on a 73 frame.   But a careful second looks says it's just a 73 with the forestock removed.   That being said, the way the barrel and magazine are nickeled and the "brassed" frame looks really nifty.   I wonder whatever happened to this gun.

 

 

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