DakotaElkSlayer said:
eljay,
I just picked up a Henry H001T two days ago and took it to the range yesterday. This model is just like the Golden Boy, but doesn't have the brasslite receiver. Let me assure you that there isn't any plastic whatsoever on, or in, my rifle.
If you have handled a Henry, you already know it has the smoothest action on the market. What suprised me was the trigger....light and crisp with no creep. Best factory trigger I have ever squeezed. Finally, this thing is a real shooter!
JIm
JIm,
Thanks for that input, and glad to hear you like the rifle. It's always rewarding when you buy a gun, and then find you like it as much as you thought you would.
I want to preface what I'm about to say by saying that I've never owned a Henry, only handled a lever and a pump in a store, and that's all the first hand knowledge I have. And it's true that those guns felt good to me.
That said, here's what I get if I try and summarize everything that I've been told by others about Henrys in addition to my reaction to the ones I handled.
1. I have never heard or read a single bad word about Henrys from people who own them. Every owner that I've heard from likes their Henrys.
2. Some dealers like them, some say they're "mediocre at best" (here quoting a dealer I've been buying guns from for about 25 years).
3. Most gunsmiths I've had occasion to talk to don't like them (This could well be an emotional response, I'll agree).
4. The lever action I handled was as smooth as a 9422 (the gold standard, in my opinion), but not smoother.
5. The trigger pull on the gun I handled was, perhaps, the best stock pull I've encountered. The 9422M in my family is equal, but out of the box had a lot of creep, for which I had to design a fix that would not create the possibility of the half cock notch catching the hammer on its way down, by adding metal rather than removing it.
So that's a summary of all the information I've gathered to date about Henrys. Surprising, and somewhat perplexing to me is that, if I search the forums, I can find more people unhappy with their 9422s than with their Henrys. And our 9422M, right now the sweetest .22 lever I've ever handled, took some serious work to get it that way, and I'm not talking about buying and installing a hammer and sear from Volquartson, either.
Also, today I had the opportunity to handle a couple of Marlin Golden 39s. I was really ready to like this gun, had never handled one. And I know that's a small data sample but, well, I guess our 9422M has me spoiled. On both of these Marlins the trigger would definitely have to have work, and the action was not as smooth as the 9422M (I should add, the action has been good on every 9422 and 9422M I've ever handled but on the newer ones, the trigger creep HAS TO BE FIXED).
I think what it is, I like 94s and 9422s. I like blued steel guns with Walnut stocks. But the engineer in me knows that good things can be done with aluminum, and bad things can be done with steel. And there are other woods out there as good as Walnut.
And I said, back when I started this thread, that I was looking for a plinker. Not a hunter, not a target shooter, and definitely not a collector's item. So, what am I gonna do?
Well, I'm going to sleep on it, but right now I seem to be pointing towards either a Remington Model 572 Fieldmaster Pump, or a Henry Lever Action, the standard model.
Strange, huh? Both have Walnut stocks (I think), but both have aluminum receivers, and probably triggers, and I don't know what else.
Oh and by the way...If there's anyone out there who owns, or has owned, a Henry, and is or was dissatisfied with it, JUMP UP AND TELL ME ABOUT IT! I cannot think of any gun I've been involved with that NOBODY was dissatisfied with, not even the S&W 27s and 29s and Colt Pythons that I used to use and work on.
Sorry, I didn't mean to carry on so, and I do appreciate all the inputs.
eljay