Category: Guns

It’s a Daisy!

A pellet gun that shoots as well today as it did nearly 40 years ago…the Daisy 717!

The pellet pistol you see in the above photo is a Daisy 717, one I’ve owned for nearly 40 years.  After learning that my Crosman C02 pellet pistols wouldn’t hold pressure a few days ago, I thought I’d try the Daisy, and whaddaya know, it worked like a champ (just like it did when I bought in the early 1980s).   The Daisy is a single-stroke pneumatic air pistol.  You pump it once with this long lever that swings out to the left, open the bolt (just like on a bolt-action rifle), put a single pellet in it, close the bolt, and then shoot.  No CO2 cartridges required.

Daisy first introduced these guns in 1981, and at the time, they sold for something well below $60.  I want to say I paid around $40 for mine at a department store called Gemco.  In those halcyon days, I thought I’d give competitive air pistol shooting a shake and I didn’t want to spend a thousand bucks or so on a serious handgun.  The range was short (I  think it was 10 meters, or 33 feet), and wow, were those targets ever tiny.  I only tried that game once…the club where the matches were held was a long drive for me, the competitors had uber-expensive guns, and I just wasn’t that into it.  But I didn’t embarrass myself, and I did better than some of the folks out there with their big bucks pellet pistols.   Then I put the Daisy away and more or less forgot about it for the last 40 years.

Well, sort of.   A friend in the bomb factory (where I was working at the time) told me about another use for air guns, and on occasion, I would put the Daisy to work when the need arose.   That story goes like this:  No matter how militant a feminist your better half might be, when there’s a spider on the ceiling or in the bathtub she’s going to get all sguiggly and require manly intervention.  That’s where yours truly and the mighty Daisy answer the call to arms.

Truth be told, there’s no way I went to get up close and personal with a big old hairy, funky spider.  I was always just as scared as Sue was, but I couldn’t let her see that.  I know, I used to be an Army officer, I’ve jumped out of airplanes, I’m pretty good with a 1911, and I rode a motorcycle across China.  But I’ll admit it, and only to you:  Spiders scare the hell out of me.  But we’re men, you see.  Real men.  And when it’s time to step up, that’s what we gotta do.

This guy might be a little much for the Daisy. I photographed him on Glendora Ridge Road in 2003. Maybe a .458 Win Mag would be more appropriate.

The good news?  The Daisy 717 makes it easy.   All you need to do when you hear that dreaded directive (There’s a spider in the bathroom…get it!) is dig out the Daisy.   Cock it without putting a pellet in the gun (that part is real important…make sure you don’t put a pellet in).  Stalk your prey carefully and slowly approach the offending arachnid.  Place the muzzle (the end the pellet comes out of) approximately two inches from the spider, taking care not to alarm it.  Take a deep breath, let it halfway out, and then slowly squeeze the trigger (without jerking it) while maintaining proper sight alignment.  When the pistol discharges, a high speed jet of compressed air will strike the spider, breaking it up into its major body parts, legs, and assorted arachnid appendages, which will then fall gently and harmlessly to the floor.  It’s likely said appendages will continue to twitch for several minutes after your demonstration of manly marksmanship.   More good news:  At this point, your job is done (you’ve done what your significant other requested).  You were asked to “get it” and you did.  If you are of a mind to, you can tell her to clean it up, but I wouldn’t advise doing so (don’t ask how I know this).

All that aside, after nearly four decades of faithful spider stalking and, most recently, trying to amuse myself during our self-imposed shelter-in-place house arrest, I thought I would try my Daisy in my cobbled-up indoor, garage-based pistol range.  I made a target stand out of a cardboard box and a phone book, and hey, the Daisy and I can still drive tacks!

Five shots at 20 feet with the Daisy. The 717 does nice work.

Pfffftttt!

Hmmmm….an indoor range with pellet guns during the shelter-in-place. What say you?

Sitting in my home office surfing the net, I’m sheltered in place which basically means staying home.  It’s like detention in high school, or maybe house arrest, except if you sneak out you could die.  I don’t know what it’s been now.  Two weeks?  Maybe more?  Anyway, I was thinking about how much I missed getting to the range.  I’m dry firing my SIG Scorpion a lot and assessing my performance by how stable the sight alignment is when the hammer drops, but it’s not the same thing as seeing the results on target.  Then I saw two handguns I hadn’t fired in maybe 30 years.  They’re the two you see above…Crosman CO2-powered replicas of a Smith and Wesson Combat Magnum (the Model 19) and the Colt Python.   Hmmmm.

So I grabbed the Python and headed out to the garage.   You load a CO2 cartridge in these things by popping the left handgrip off, inserting a fresh CO2 cartridge, and then tightening the screw at the bottom of the grip to tap the keg and form a seal.  Except it didn’t.  Form a seal, that is.  Pfffttttt!  That’s the sound of a CO2 cartridge emptying.  That sound, and a bit of frost on the backstrap due to the rapidly expanding CO2 escaping around what used to be an effective seal.

No problem, I’ll just try the Combat Magnum.  It’s good to have spares, you know?  Except the results were the same.   Pfffffttttt again!

Eternally optimistic, I went back to the Python and took it apart.  Cheaply made guts, to be sure, but to my great surprise the internals are more complex than a real Python.  Hmmmm.  Man, there are a lot of seals inside that thing!   I took it all apart and sprayed the hell out of everything with WD40, thinking the seals would be refreshed and, you know, seal.  It took a lot longer putting it back together, and then it was another CO2 cartridge.    And another frosty Pfffffttttt!  Times that by two, and you’ll have a good idea of how I spent Saturday afternoon.  Except after the last attempt, I guess I forgot how it all went together again and I reverted to a YouTube video on this specific subject.   You can find everything on YouTube.  God forbid I ever have a brain tumor, but if I did, I’m pretty sure somebody’s done a YouTube on how to surgically extract it yourself at home using readily-available kitchen utensils.

Sunday morning started with me watching the video again.  With the help of a good Mariachi sound track (watch the video) and an artfully-edited YouTube video, I finally got the Crosman back together with no parts left over.

My Crosman .357 had two problems.  The first was its Pfffftttt! problem; the other was the “elastomeric spring” that holds the barrel latch up.  That part was sort of a rubber chingadera that had degraded and hardened.  The spring aspect of its existence didn’t really work because the part no longer had any spring to it.  Holding and examining it in my fingers, it fell apart like a cheap politician’s promise (sorry for the redundancy).  I thought maybe I could order a new elastomeric spring (which really is an exotic term for a little piece of rubber), but when I went online I saw right away I would have problem.    I found parts lists for my pellet pistol, but most of the parts were out of stock, and the few parts that were still in stock were way expensive.   I only paid something like $37 when I bought the pellet gun maybe 35 years ago.   There’s no way I’m going to pay half that for a little piece of rubber.

Like most exploded drawings, though, it was visually arresting.  I was already in mental handcuffs studying it when I noticed the elastomeric spring circled in red.  Whoever loaded that drawing evidently needed the same part.

The way the Crosman 357 loads is you depress a button in the top of the frame and it acts against the elastomeric spring you see in the drawing above.  That lowers a lever to unlock a tab (the lever is the part immediately above the elastomeric spring in the drawing).  That allows you to unlock and rotate the barrel down and the gun opens like an old British Webley. Then you can remove the cylinder and put the pellets in it.

I couldn’t fix the seal problem, but I felt like I wanted to fix something.  So I cut up a wide rubber band, superglued the pieces together, and made my own elastomeric spring.  It works well.  But that’s not the main problem.  That honor goes to the seals being (pardon the pun) shot.  They are suffering (like me) from age-induced degradation.  To make a long story longer, I went through six CO2 cartridges trying to find a fix.  You can buy new seals, but they cost nearly as much as what I paid for the whole gun originally.  And that’s before you put the larcenous shipping and handling charges on top of it all.  Truth be told, I just don’t want to mess with the Crosman anymore.  Even if I got those new seals, there’s no guarantee the thing is going to work.

The good news?  I know a hell of a lot more about how a Crosman pellet revolver is supposed to work.  More good news?  The story I’m telling here was an interesting way to spend eight hours of my shelter in place time.  The bad news?   My two Crosman pellet guns are now nothing more than display pieces.  I could probably find a way to make new seals, but I’m just not that committed to it.

I’ve got another CO2 pellet gun (a 1911) laying around somewhere that I’ve had about 10 years and never fired. I might dig it out later and screw around with it. I’ve also got an old Daisy pneumatic pellet pistol, and I think I’ll try to find it to see if it still works.  As always, stay tuned.

The Browning Firearms Museum

Ogden’s Finest. It was a good morning to be a Harley, I think. A little wet, maybe, but still a good day to be out and about.

You know, you could do a pretty cool adventure ride lasting a couple of weeks without ever leaving Utah.  I know we’re stuck at home, self-isolating and all that, so it’s a good time to share past adventures and photos of great trips.  I’ve traveled a lot, and I think Utah is one of the best destinations on the planet.  It is probably the most scenic and interesting state in the country.

About that photo you see above…Susie and I rolled into Odgen one day back in 2015 to visit their museums, and these Ogden motor officers were parked out front. It was a great photo op, so I asked, they said okay, and the photo you see above is the result.  It was raining that morning, but that never stopped me from riding and it didn’t stop these motor officers, either!

Ogden has four museums and an art gallery in their old railroad station, and it’s one heck of a deal. For a very minimal entrance fee, you get to see the Browning antique car collection, the Browning firearms museum, the railroad museum, the cowboy museum, and an art gallery.  If you don’t have Ogden on your destinations list, maybe you need a new list!

Entering the Browning Firearms Museum. This museum alone makes Ogden a must-see destination.

Our focus in this blog is the Browning firearms museum.  John Moses Browning, who did much of his work in Ogden, was perhaps the world’s most prolific arms inventor.  This museum highlights his creations as well as many other interesting guns. I was in my element here!

Handguns, rifles, machine guns…Browning’s creations cover it all.
An 1886 Winchester. That buttplate is punishing with the 1886’s .45 70 cartridge.
The 1911 .45 ACP semi-auto handgun, one of Browning’s best-known inventions.
A few of Browning’s single-shot rifles.
More cool Browning single-shot rifles. The second one from the top is a Browning B78. I have one of those rifles.
A close up of the Browning 1878 stock.
A display of Winchester rifles.
An ornately-engraved Browning 9mm Hi-Power handgun. It was a later design than the 1911.

The lighting in the Browning museum was dim, and that’s why the photos you see in this blog are perhaps a bit below what I try to present on the blog. I was shooting at a very high ISO without flash, as most of the displays were behind glass.  The photos are not great, but they are pretty good considering the lighting.

There were a lot of interesting firearms on display, and then we migrated over to the car collection and the railroad museum. Those will be the subjects of subsequent blogs. Trust me on this…if you’re ever in Ogden, you don’t want to miss this place.

After a great lunch in downtown Ogden, we talked about where we’d go next, and Susie suggested Promontory Summit. We had learned a bit about it in the railroad museum, and we were only about 45 miles away. It’s where the railroad construction crews completed the railroad that reached across the United States. That’s coming up, so stay tuned!

Henry’s home, and an interview with Dan

California’s 10 days are up, and Henry is in the house!

Henry, of course, is my new brass-framed .45 70 Single Shot from the rifle manufacturer of the same name.  I haven’t shot it yet, but I’m ready.  Eager, too.  This is going to be fun.

To continue the story and as promised, a few days ago I interviewed Daniel Clayton-Luce, Henry’s Director of Communications.  As you know from reading our earlier blogs, I am impressed with Henry and I purchased one of their new Single Shot rifles. I picked up my Single Shot yesterday (practicing all the required social distancing rules, of course), and wow, it is one fine firearm.  Take a look.

With me, it’s always been about the wood.   I’ll get better photos when I’m basking in the grand and glorious sunshine at the West End Gun Club (and I’m not sure just yet when that will be), but here are a few teaser shots.

Like I said above, I haven’t shot the Henry yet.  But my first impressions are very, very good.  The wood is stellar (both the stock and the fore end), the wood-to-metal fit is way better than what I’m used to seeing on production guns, the action feels crisp and tight, and the brass frame and buttplate are classy.  The trigger is a little heavy, but it is breaking-glass crisp, and the rifle shoulders well.  The quality is off the charts.  It’s that good.

So, about that interview with good buddy Dan from Henry USA…let’s get to it.  My first questions were these: What prompted Henry to enter the single shot rifle market, and did Henry do so by purchasing the old Harrington and Richardson design and production equipment?

Dan explained to me that the new Henry Single Shot is a Henry through and through, it has no relation to the H&R design, and I would absolutely notice a difference in quality between it and the H&R guns. He sure was right. I am a collector and admirer of fine rifles (I’ve focused primarily on Ruger No. 1 and Ruger No. 3 rifles), and I think I know a bit about what goes into a good rifle. For me, the Ruger No. 1 has been the gold standard, especially the earlier ones made in the late 1960s and 1970s. I’m here to tell you that the new Henry is equal to those rifles, and perhaps even better. The fit, the finish, the wood, the bluing, and the overall feel of my Henry is absolutely top notch. Surprisingly, the new Henry brass-framed .45 70 (at an MSRP of a little over $600) is less than half the cost of a new Ruger No. 1. I am impressed. Dan told me that Henry decided to enter the single shot market with a premium offering, and after examining my new rifle, I can tell you that “premium” is the right adjective. My Henry Single Shot is stunning.

I told Dan that I thought entering the single shot rifle market had to be a risky venture (H&R went out of business, Ruger’s No. 1 sales have declined significantly, and the rage today seems to be black plastic Rambo wannabee guns). Dan told me that bringing the Henry Single Shot to market wasn’t as dicey a proposition as it might appear. Henry USA felt there was a strong desire in many shooters to get back to the basics, and shooting doesn’t get more basic than only having one shot. You need to make that one shot count, Dan said, and there’s an inherent challenge that makes a successful hunt with a single shot rifle more rewarding. It forces you to slow down, take your time with each shot, and think about the fundamentals. Dan didn’t have to convince me. I knew exactly what he was talking about.  My first rifle was a single shot and I’ve been addicted to them ever since.

Dan told me the Henry Single Shot is doing well. Sales are good, and the rifle is a flexible platform (it is easy to introduce new calibers). In viewing the Henry USA website, I saw that the Single Shot is offered in .223, .243, .30 30, .308 Winchester, .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and .45 70.  They have shotgun versions, too, in .410, 20 gauge, and 12 gauge. I suggested that Henry consider adding .22 Hornet to the mix (the .22 Hornet is a classic cartridge and it is one of my favorites, as you know from our earlier blogs on the Ruger No. 3 and my vintage Winchester Model 43). Dan said they would take a look at that and I immediately put my oar in the water…I told Dan when they bring out a .22 Hornet I want the first one off the production line (with fancy walnut, of course).

I asked Dan if they were going to offer replacement barrels to allow changing from one caliber to another. There are no plans to do so, he told me, and I can see the logic in that. Henry offers two models of the Single Shot rifle, one with a brass frame and one with a steel frame. The brass frame models are offered in chamberings that operate at lower pressure (.45 70, .357 Magnum, and .44 Magnum). If the barrels were interchangeable, there’s a risk someone might mount the barrel for a higher-pressure cartridge (e.g., .308 Winchester) on a brass frame. I get it.

I asked about folks using Henry rifles in competition, and Dan told me they are popular in both SASS (Single Action Shooting Society) and cowboy silhouette. There are no kits on the market for slicking the actions on a Henry lever gun (as exist for Marlin rifles), but the Henry rifles still have a good presence in these events.

Henry’s website says that Henry is the leading lever action manufacturer. Dan said that’s true, both from the perspective of quantity of rifles and sales revenue. That’s impressive. Marlin and Winchester have been around for more than 150 years, and Henry has already surpassed them,

My next question was on takedown and cleaning. I’ve owned Marlin and Winchester lever guns, and the difference in disassembling the two for cleaning is significant. On the Marlin, you only have to remove one screw (the lever pivot screw), and then the lever, the bolt, and the ejector are easily removed to provide access to the breech. Disassembling a Winchester is much more complex. Dan told me the Henry lever guns are like Marlins in that regard. That’s a good thing. On that same topic, I spent some time looking at Henry’s web-based maintenance videos. As a guy who’s done a few of those for CSC Motorcycles (I know what it takes to make a good video), I was impressed. The Henry videos are excellent.  They cover disassembly, reassembly, sight adjustment, cleaning, and more. This is good stuff.

Anthony Imperato is Henry’s President and CEO (that’s Mr. Imperato you see in the photo above). In the video on the Henry website he comes across as a cool guy, so I asked the question: What’s he really like? Dan told me that Anthony is a personable, good-natured, hands-on leader and a genuine nice guy. He’s a shooter, too. That was good to hear. When I work with the best motorcycle companies (like CSC or Janus), it’s always good to see that the top people are riders as well as business leaders. Dan told me that the overwhelming majority of the nearly 500 employees at Henry are shooters and hunters. It sounds like a team I would like to join. If I was younger and looking for a place to make a difference, I’d send a resume to Henry.

Henry USA started as a small manufacturing operation in Brooklyn, New York.  Henry outgrew the Brooklyn facility and moved manufacturing to Bayonne, New Jersey.  In 2016, Henry opened a second plant in Rice Lake, Wisconsin to manufacture the Single Shot.  Henry has grown to nearly 500 employees and they now offer a wide range of rifles, shotguns, and accessories.  Take it from me, folks:  Henry is the real deal, a genuine Made-In-America success story.

I asked Dan about the make/buy mix on their guns, and he told me 100% of the parts in a Henry are made in the U.S. The walnut comes from Missouri and is finished in North Carolina. There must be something about the soil and the water in Missouri; all the best wood from custom riflesmiths comes from Missouri. And North Carolina has a long heritage of making high end furniture, so it’s a natural fit for those good Southerners to craft the Missouri walnut for Henry. Henry uses a spray varnish on all but their modern version of the original Henry rifle (those rifles have an oil finish).  I examined my Henry carefully, and the finish is flawless.  I’m pretty picky about that sort of thing, having finished a few rifles myself.  These folks have it wired.   Henry does its own machining, too, including the barrels.

Dan and I spoke about their different models for a bit, and I asked which one is the most popular. The best-selling of all the Henry rifles is their H001, the .22 lever action rifle. In the Single Shot series, it’s the .45 70 (I guess great minds work alike). Dan told me every Henry has a lifetime warranty that follows the gun. New, used, or inherited, Henry stands behind the rifle for life. That says a lot. Henry tests every rifle for safety and functionality. They don’t test for accuracy, but they don’t need to. I know from firing good buddy TK’s beautiful brass-framed .44 Mag Henry lever gun that they are very accurate. When TK let me shoot his .44, I put five slugs through a hole you could cover with a quarter. In fact, it was that morning on the range a few years ago with TK that first planted the Henry seed in my mind.

I was going to ask Dan why someone would buy a Henry instead of a Marlin, a Winchester, or a Ruger, but I already knew the answer.  It’s for all the reasons you see above.  Good walnut, classy looks, a good trigger, real craftsmanship, a great price, accuracy, a lifetime warranty, and it’s all made right here in the USA.  It just doesn’t get any better than this.  The Henry .45 70 Single Shot is a beautiful and handy carbine that looks and feels the way a gun should.  It’s 7 pounds and .45 70 chambering will make for a bit of kick on the bench with the 405-grain Missouri bullets, but that’s okay.   On a hunt, I’ve never felt the recoil or even heard the gun fire when the hammer drops.  That’s what intense concentration does; you folks who have experienced it already know that.  The look?  Henry nailed it.  There’s something about polished brass, blue steel, and fancy walnut that simply feels right on a fine firearm, and Henry has made this a fine firearm indeed.

Stay tuned to the ExhaustNotes blog for the .45 70 Henry range test.  Sign up here and never miss an ExhaustNotes blog!

Check out our earlier Henry Single Shot stories here:

Developing a Henry .45 70 Load:  Part 2
Developing A Henry .45 70 Load:  Part 1
The Henry Is In California
Henry Rifles:  Made in America Or Not Made At All

Want more gun stuff?  Hey, just click here!

Would you like to know more about Henry USA?  Here you go, folks!

Developing a .45 70 Henry Load: Part 2

The new Henry Single Shot, brass frame .45 70 rifle. Henry makes a beautiful rifle.

I’m using the time before I pick up my new Henry rifle to prepare the reloaded ammunition I want to test for accuracy.  You will recall that in an earlier blog we discussed the three .45 70 load levels shown in modern reloading manuals.  As I mentioned in that earlier blog, I use the loads intended for the 1873 Trapdoor Springfield.  Those loads were powerful enough to take down all kinds of critters back in the 1800s, and in developing loads for other .45 70 rifles, I’ve found these to be fun to shoot and accurate.

Missouri 405-grain cast .45 70 bullets. These have proven to be very accurate in other .45 70 rifles.  I’m trying these and two other bullets in the Henry.  The .22 Long Rifle cartridge you see here didn’t come with the Missouri bullets; I added it to give you an idea of just what a monster the .45 70 cartridge is.

My loads are based primarily on the components I have on hand and loads I’ve known to work well in the past.  Powders include SR 4759, IMR 4198, IMR 3031, 5744, Varget, and Trail Boss.  Bullets include the Remington 405-grain jacketed soft point, the Hornady 300-grain jacketed hollow point, and the Missouri 405-grain cast roundnose.

A photo showing some of the components to be used in this test. When loading, I would never have all of this stuff on the reloading bench, and in particular, I would never have more than one powder on the bench at the same time. The risk of mixing powders is too great. If you have more than one powder container on the bench, it’s very easy to pour the remaining powder in the dispenser into the wrong container (don’t ask me how I know this). When that happens, the only prudent thing to do is throw the mixed powder on the front lawn (it makes good fertilizer).

I like all of the bullets I listed above, but I particularly like the Missouri bullets.  The Missouri cast bullets seem to always be available, they are relatively inexpensive, and they are accurate.   I’m expecting to see great accuracy from these in the Henry, as they shoot well in the Ruger and the Marlin.  The 405-grain Missouri bullets are accurate in the Chiappa 1886, too, but that rifle’s stock design and buttplate make the recoil painful when shooting the heavier Missouri bullets.

Here are the .45 70 loads I will test in the Henry:

When testing for accuracy, it helps to keep things organized.  I’ll bring this table to the range with me and record my results as soon I retrieve the targets. All loads will be fired using open sights at 50 yards.

For a more in-depth reloading process overview, I invite you to review our earlier series on loading .45 ACP ammunition.  The .45 70 reloading process is very similar to loading handgun ammo.  That’s because the .45 70 is nearly a straight-walled cartridge, so the steps are the same.  This is what is involved in reloading .45 70 ammo:

The reloading process. It looks complicated, but it’s very intuitive. Most folks who reload find it as enjoyable as shooting.

I use mostly RCBS or Lee reloading dies for all of the cartridges I load.  Both are good companies, and both offer superior customer service (if you ever need it, which has only occurred a couple of times for me).  I’ve been reloading .45 70 ammo for close to 50 years now, and I’ve been using the same set of RCBS dies the entire time.

A three-die RCBS set. The first die (on the left) deprimes and resizes the fired case to its original diameter. The case has to be lubricated for this step, or else it will stick in the die.  The second die is called the expander die.  It expands the upper portion of the cartridge case and, if adjusted to do so, adds a flare to the case mouth.   The third die (on the right) is the bullet seating and crimping die.  It can be adjusted to change the depth to which the bullet is seated, and to add a crimp if you wish to do so.

The expander die (the one in the center of the above three dies) is the one that flares the case mouth.  It contains a threaded insert with a step in it to apply the bell mouth to the case.

In this photo, the case expander has been removed from the die to show the diametral step. It is this step that adds a flare to the case mouth.

This is what the case mouth should look like after it has been flared.  You don’t want to overdo this step.  You just want to get enough of a flare to allow the bullet to get started in the case.

A .45 70 case with a flared mouth. We add the flare to allow the bullet to enter the case with no shaving of the bullet.

After the case has the flare applied, it’s time to clean the primer pockets and then prime each case.  I use another RCBS tool to clean any combustion residue from the primer pocket (see our earlier tutorial on loading .45 ACP ammo), and then I use a Lee priming tool to seat the primers.

The Lee priming tool. This is another tool I’ve been using for five decades. It’s a much better way to prime cartridge cases.
A CCI 200 large rifle primer in place, ready to be seated in a cartridge case. The .45 70 cartridge requires a Lee No. 8 shellholder, shown in place in this photo.
A .45 70 case in the Lee priming tool. Compressing the handle (shown to the right of the priming tool barrel) forces the primer into the case. You do this one at a time for each case.
A freshly primed .45 70 cartridge case.

After all the cases have been cleaned, flared, and primed, it’s time to add propellant.  I use my RCBS scale along with a powder dispenser to add the right amount of powder to each case.  To get the correct amount of powder, I always consult a load manual.  I’m showing you different charge weights in this blog, but DO NOT rely on what I’m telling you (or what you read on the Internet from other people) for this information.  Always consult a reloading manual.  Several reloading manuals are available; I prefer the Lyman manual and it’s the one I use most often.  Most of the other manuals are either from bullet manufacturers or propellant manufacturers, so they list only their components.  The Lyman manuals are not restricted to a single brand of bullets or powders, as Lyman does not manufacture bullets or powders.   Lyman does a good job, I think.

My RCBS powder scale, the reloading tray, and ten .45 70 cases waiting for their propellant charges.

When I load different test loads as I’m describing in this blog, I’ll charge and complete each group separately.  Typically, that’s ten cartridges in a group.

Once the cases have been charged with propellant, it’s time to seat and crimp the bullet.  I typically use a light crimp for the .45 70.  Crimping involves bending the flared case mouth into a crimping groove (sometimes called a cannelure) on the bullet.  You crimp a cartridge for three reasons: To prevent the bullet from being forced further into the cartridge case if it is fed into the chamber automatically (as occurs with, say, a 9mm or .45 ACP cartridge), to prevent the bullet from backing out of the case due to the recoil of other cartridges (as might occur in a revolver or a rifle magazine), and to hold the bullet in place when the primer first fires (this allows the flame front to build to a consistent pressure in cartridge prior to driving the bullet down the bore).   It’s that last reason that I’m most interested in here.  It should make for a more accurate cartridge.  Theoretically, neither of the first two reasons is a consideration for a single shot rifle.

A Missouri bullet on top of a charged .45 70 case, ready to be run into the bullet seating die in the RCBS Rockchucker press.

Seating the bullet and crimping it is a bit of a dance.  You have to get the bullet seated to the right depth, and then you have to apply the crimp.  We use the third and final die in a three-die set to accomplish both.  I screw the bullet seating portion of the die fairly far into die initially and then I screw the die into the press to get the bullet seating depth where I want it.  In this case, I want the top of the brass case to be nearly even with the top of the bullet’s crimp groove.   Then I back the bullet seat all the way up in the die, and screw the die body into the press such that it forms the crimp (there’s a tapered decreased diameter in the die insider diameter that forms crimp).  Once I have the crimp where I want it (and the amount of crimp I want), I then screw the bullet seater all the way such that it contacts the bullet.  I then make sure everything is jake on the next round (you know, the same crimp and the same cartridge overall length), I make any required small adjustments, and then I lock everything down with the die’s two locknuts and load the remaining cases.

Adjustments on the seating and crimping die. The small-diameter threaded shaft controls fine adjustment of the bullet seating depth. Turning the main die body into or out of the press controls coarse bullet seating depth and crimp. The two locknuts (denoted by the arrows on the left) lock the bullet seating shaft and the die body in place.
The Missouri bullet nearly fully seated in the case, but not yet crimped. I’ll seat the bullet just a bit deeper, and in the last few thousandths of an inch on the press stroke, the upper edge of the cartridge case will be crimped by the die around the bullet.
A seated and crimped Missouri bullet in a .45 70 brass case. When I bellmouth the cases, I only open them up just enough to allow the bullet to start into the case. When I crimp, I only crimp a little bit. This minimizes working of the brass around the case mouth. Loading at the Trapdoor Springfield levels as I do, and using this minimal amount of opening and then crimping the brass, results in long case life. These cases were purchased in the 1970s and I’m still using them.
A completed round. This .45 70 cartridge is ready chamber and fire.  It’s a big cartridge.

After I’ve done all of the above, I immediately label the packaged, reloaded ammo so that I know what I have.  I can’t rely on my memory and do this later; I always perform the labeling operation as soon as the reloading operations are complete.

A box of 50 .45 70 cartridges labeled and ready to take to the range. I always label my loads as soon as I finish them.
Because these are cartridges loaded differently for accuracy testing in the new Henry rifle, I included a map inside the cartridge container to identify how each group has been loaded.
Ready to go to the range. Reloaded cartridges are less expensive than factory ammunition, and I will be able to find which combination of components performs with the greatest accuracy in my new Henry rifle. With factory ammo, you pay more and you get what you get in terms of accuracy.

There you have it.   I have all the .45 70 ammunition I want to test loaded, boxed, labeled, and ready to go to the range.  Now all I have to do is take possession of my new Henry, head out to the West End Gun Club, and see what works best.  You’ll get to see it, too, right here on the ExNotes blog.

Check out our earlier Henry Single Shot stories here:

Developing A Henry .45 70 Load:  Part 1
The Henry Is In California
Henry Rifles:  Made in America Or Not Made At All

And check out our other Tales of Gun Stories here.

Developing a Henry .45 70 Load: Part 1

The new Henry Single Shot. Mine has exceptionally fancy walnut. I am a soft touch when fancy walnut is involved.

I’m about a week away from having sufficiently cooled (at least in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia’s eyes), which is another way of saying I have 7 days left until my 10-day waiting period is over, and then I’ll be able to pick up my new Henry .45 70 Single Shot.  (“Single Shot” is capitalized because it’s a proper noun; it’s Henry’s official name for this rifle.)

Another view showing the entire Henry Single Shot rifle. I’ll get better photos when I get to the range; I shot these photos at the dealer.

I am loading a series of cartridges to test for accuracy in the new Henry and I’m going to tell you about the loads, but before I get into that I want to tell you about the three levels of reloads you find in the .45 70 reloading manuals.  I’ll post about the different loads (and reloading those rounds) in the next blog.

A Sense of Scale: A .22 Long Rifle cartridge, a 405-grain Missouri cast .45 70 bullet (just the bullet is bigger in both length and diameter than an entire .22 cartridge), and a reloaded .45 70 cartridge.

.45 70 History

I’ve been a student of the .45 70 for close to 50 years, and the cartridge is nearly 150 years old.  One of the best sources of information on the early .45 70 rifles is Jack Behn’s touchstone reference shown below.

One of the best references on early .45 70 rifles is Jack Behn’s excellent 1956 book. It was published by the Gun Room Press, an imprint owned by the now defunct Rutgers Gun Store. When I picked up my 1973 Colin D. MacManus 1911 .45 auto, it was from the Rutgers Gun Store in Highland Park, New Jersey.

At the end of the Civil War, the Army knew it needed a breechloading rifle (one that loaded from the rear with metallic cartridges).  This resulted in development of the 1873 Springfield rifle and the .45 70 500 cartridge, so designated because it fired a 500-grain, .458-inch diameter lead cartridge propelled by 70 grains of black powder.  That was later changed to a 405-grain lead cartridge because soldiers complained that recoil with the 500-grain projectile was excessive.

An 1873 Trapdoor Springfield rifle.

That .45 70 Trapdoor Springfield remained in service from 1873 through the Spanish American War and our wars against the Plains Indians.  It was also the rifle most frequently used by buffalo hunters to nearly exterminate the American bison, which was really little more than an extension of the war against the Indians (it’s not widely known, but the dominant reason the U.S. Government encouraged eradication of the American bison was because it was the principal source of food, shelter, and clothing for the Indians).

The Trapdoor action.  New in its day, it is antiquated today.  It is a weaker action than are those used in modern single shot and lever action rifles, and it therefore is loaded to lower chamber pressures.

Trapdoor Springfield .45 70 Loads

The “Trapdoor” designation for the 1873 Springfield refers to the action design.   The Springfield’s action had a hinged element that rotated forward to allow loading a cartridge, which was then closed and locked in place prior to firing a round.   It was state of the art in  1873, but it was inherently weak and limited the pressures to which ammunition could be loaded.  But it was enough.  The Springfield action could withstand pressures up to around 17,000 psi, sufficient to launch a 405-grain projectile at velocities a little north of 1400 feet per second.  It was more than enough to kill a man, and in fact, it was enough to kill a buffalo.

Winchester and Marlin .45 70 Loads

The .45 70 cartridge had a lot going for it, and in 1886, Winchester introduced a .45 70 lever action repeater (their Model 1886).  Marlin had previously introduced a .45 70 lever action repeater in 1881.  The Winchester and Marlin rifles had two advantages:  They could fire repeatedly by operating the lever action and squeezing the trigger, and the lever gun actions were stronger (so they could be loaded to higher pressures with resulting higher velocities).  I don’t know that any of the ammo companies loaded the cartridge to the higher pressures the Winchester and Marlin rifles could handle back in those days (probably out of a fear that the ammo might be used in the weaker Springfield action), but folks who reload today and who have either a Marlin or a Winchester can load their ammunition to the higher levels allowed by the lever gun receivers.

The reloading manuals show that the Model 1895 Marlin and Model 1886 Winchester lever actions can handle chamber pressures in the 27,000 psi range.   That’s enough to drive a 405-grain bullet out at about 1700 feet per second.  That’s a smoking hot load.

This is a Chiappa reproduction of the 1886 Winchester rifle, chambered in .45 70. This is a lever action rifle.
The 1886 Chiappa reproduction. The curved metal buttplate is a faithful reproduction of the original Winchester design, and it is punishing when the hammer drops. Nice wood, huh?
A modern Marlin 1895. When I saw this one on the rack, I knew I had to have it. I’ve owned the rifle about 25 years now. It’s very accurate, and it regularly shoots into an inch with open sights at 50 yards.

Ruger No. 1 and No. 3 .45 70 Loads

The next step in the .45 70 evolutionary chain?  That would be the single shot rifles offered by Ruger starting in the 1970s.  Ruger had two:  Their No. 1 rifle and the No. 3.  Both use the same action, and it’s strong.  In the Ruger rifles, you can load .45 70 ammunition to nearly the same velocities and the same pressures as a .458 Winchester Magnum, which is to say, crazy levels (at least in terms of recoil).   Ruger rifles chambered in .45 70 can handle pressures approaching 40,000 psi, with 405-grain bullet velocities north of 2,000 feet per second.  I’ve done this.  It’s no fun.

A Ruger No. 1 falling block rifle. This is the rare 26-inch barreled version with figured Circassian walnut. Ruger only made a limited number of these variants and most of them have very plain wood. It’s pretty, but the Marlin shown above is more accurate.

.45 70 Loads:  The Bottom Line

The upshot of all this?  There are three levels to which you can reload .45 70 ammunition:  The Trapdoor Springfield level, the 1886 Winchester/Marlin level, and the Ruger level.  When you see this in a reloading manual, you’ll see three sets of reloading data, designated separately as explained in this blog.

What does all this mean in the real world?  Your mileage may vary, but for me, I never venture into the Marlin/Winchester and Ruger .45 70 reloading levels.   There’s just too much recoil, and you don’t need to go there for accuracy.  I would argue further that you don’t need to go there for lethality (the .45 70 in 1873 Trapdoor Springfields killed a lot of buffalo).  I stick to the Springfield levels for all of my rifles (even though I could go higher), and that’s how I’m going to load for the new Henry rifle, too.

More Tales of the Gun here, including detailed info on each of the rifles shown above!

The Henry is in California

I sure was surprised a couple of days ago.  While sheltered in place, or locked down, or in self-isolation, or whatever the nom du jour is, I received an email from my local FFL telling me that my Henry Rifle had arrived.  Wow, I didn’t even know it had been shipped yet!  You know the deal…I’m here in California and I have to wait 10 days so that I can cool sufficiently before taking possession of the new rifle, but I wanted to get the process started.  I made an appointment so as not to be around too many other people and off I went.  Truth be told, it felt great just getting out of the house, and I felt even better when I saw the Henry .45 70.  It’s beautiful.

You can refer to our earlier blog for the first part of the Henry story.  In it, I told about asking their marketing director (good buddy Dan) to try to get me one with a nice piece of walnut, and wow, did they ever!  When I arrived at the FFL, the lighting at the store was not conducive to great photography, but I did my best:

What’s really nice about this rifle is that the stock is highly figured on both sides, and it is what I would call exhibition grade walnut. I’m guessing it’s American walnut, as Henry prides itself on being made in America.  I’ve been collecting rifles for a good half century now, and I have some with really nice wood.  The new Henry jumped to the head of the pack.  It’s stunning.

I had hoped to have a more in depth chat with Dan this week, but like all companies, Henry has its hands full right now.  That’s okay; we’ll get to chat later.  What Dan told me earlier is that all these rifles are nice, and they are a cut above what one would normally see in a rifle in this price range.  I think he’s being too modest.  I’ve seen and I own rifles that cost two to four times as much as this Henry, and the fit and finish on those is not as nice as this.  It truly is a beautiful rifle.  My compliments to Henry USA!

I’ve already started loading .45 70 for the Henry ammo development effort, and I think the next blog will be on that topic.  This is going to be fun, folks.  I can’t wait to talk possession of the rifle and I can’t wait to start shooting it.  I’m eager to see how the rifle performs, and I’m equally eager to get the Henry on the bench and out in the sunlight so I can get better photos for you…this rifle deserves it!

More Tales of the Gun can be found right here!

We’re going through a rough patch right now, and when I say we, I mean that literally.  We, as in the whole world, are working through a terrible situation.  But it will pass, and when it does, we’ll be better people.  I’ve cut back substantially on the time I spend on social media for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is my deep disappointment in people who are using the current world health situation to post stupid stuff.  But every once in a while you see something good, and this meme from Southern Pride and Dixie Proud was one of those rare occasions:

Ruger’s .308 GSR Rifle

The story today, boys and girls, is about Ruger’s Gunsite Scout Rifle, or as Ruger calls it, the GSR.

My Ruger GSR. I have the blue steel version in .308 Winchester, which was the way Ruger originally offered the rifle.  Ruger also makes a stainless version in .308, and both blue and stainless versions in .223 Remington.  In the last few years, Ruger started offering these rifles in several other calibers, with other stock materials, too.

To keep a short story short, here’s the bottom line:  This thing is one of the most accurate iron-sighted rifles I’ve ever owned.  To make a short story a little less short, I have to tell you the rifle’s background and a bit about how my good buddy Jim Wile (rest in peace, Jim) and I came to buy our GSRs.

A long, long time ago, in a far away galaxy, there was this guy named Colonel Jeff Cooper who sort of became a god among mortals on all things gun related.  Cooper had a lot of good ideas on handguns and was well published in his field.  The Colonel started a shooting school (it still exists) that teaches marksmanship and tactics in Arizona called the Gunsite Academy (attending one of their classes is on my bucket list; good buddies Marty and Rex have done so).  The good Colonel also had a few ideas on what would make a good scout rifle, with his concept being something light, accurate, short barreled, chambered in a respectable cartridge, and capable of mounting a low-powered scope with lots of eye relief.  The idea floated around in the gun world for a few years, Steyr produced an overpriced rifle meeting the criteria, and then Ruger picked up the concept.  About a decade ago, Ruger introduced their GSR, chambered in .308 Winchester (the 7.62 NATO round).  At the time, they retailed for about a thousand bucks.  That’s a lot of money, but as you know, I know people.  Jim and I got our GSR rifles for $800 (a pretty good deal, I think).

Jim Wile and I bought the GSRs at the same time while shopping under the influence.   I had lost a couple of teeth (sometimes this happens in political discussions, sometimes it happens as we grow older, and sometimes it happens in motorcycle crashes; I need not go into the details of my toothlessness here).  I was getting a new implant (yep, I have a couple of fake teeth), and that required oral surgery and anesthesia.   Good buddy Jim drove me to the oral surgeon and I was still half looped from the anesthesia when we got back to my place.  We’d been talking about these new Ruger GRS rifles for a while, and I guess I called a woman I know at Turner’s.  I can’t say I wouldn’t have done it if not under the influence of the tooth doc’s elixers, so I won’t, but to keep this story from growing too long, I’ll just say I was a little surprised when Jim told me the next day what we had done.  Ten days later we both owned new GSRs.

The GSR’s laminated stock. The rifle comes with spacers so you can adjust the length of pull (that’s the distance between the trigger and the buttplate). It’s a comfortable and stable platform.
The GSR has a short barrel, fixed sights, and two provisions for scope mounting: A forward-mounted Picatinny rail, and Ruger’s standard scope rings and slots above the receiver.

They are cool rifles.  The GSR rifle has a Parkerized finish (which made it an immediate winner in my book), a laminated stock, scope rings and a Picatinny rail, and a couple of recoil pad spacers so you can increase the length of pull to adjust it to what you like.   I didn’t put my two spacers in; I liked the rifle as delivered with its short stock.  The rifle had two 10-round metal mags that rattled a lot; I bought a plastic 5-round mag and that’s all I use (I like the sleeker look and the fact that it doesn’t rattle).  I don’t need 10 rounds.  Five will do just fine, thank you.

I don’t shoot the GSR that often, but I like it a lot. It is a comfortable and handy rifle. If I had a truck it would be a truck gun.

My good buddy, the late Jim Wile. Jim changed motorcycles about as often as I changed underwear. This photo was on a ride through Arizona.   We were headed into Prescott (a glorious ride in the mountains) when I shot this photo.

Before Jim went to his reward, he and I spent a lot of time doing the things God put us here to do, which is to say we covered a lot of miles on our motorcycles and we spent a lot of time at the gun club sending lead downrange.  On one of our trips to the range, Jim brought along a sheet of bulletproof glass. I was kind of floored when he pulled it out of his car and told me what it was.  Bulletproof glass?  Bitchin’!  I’ll take that challenge!

That big old pane of superthick glass was the same stuff you see in banks. Before he retired, Jim owned one of those PayDay advance stores and I think the state required him to use bulletproof glass.  Or maybe Jim just thought it would be a cool thing to have in his store.   Whatever.  It was a good inch (at least an inch) think and the pane was about 15 inches tall and 3 feet wide.  Maybe it was designed to go on top of a counter.  It had a real light greenish hue to it.  If you’ve ever been in a bank, you’ve seen this stuff.

You can probably guess where this story is going. Yep, we set that pane up, leaning against a rock, about 50 feet out and went to work.  Jim started shooting at it with a .357 Magnum Ruger SP 100 revolver. Pew! Pew! Pew!  You know, just to see if it really was bulletproof.  I mean, he had owned it for years, and I suppose ol’ Jim had been wondering for a long time.  Just curious, man.  Big kid stuff.  And that’s what we were that day.  Two kids in their 60s shooting at bulletproof glass.  If we had been 50 or 60 years younger, we would have been blowing up model cars with cherry bombs.  This day was devoted to shooting bulletproof glass, just to see if it really was. Bulletproof glass. Let’s check it out!

Jim’s .357 bullets didn’t even dent that glass. We looked at the pane’s surface up close, and we could maybe see a dust shadow where the .357 slugs had flattened.  But they didn’t penetrate or mark the glass at all.  This was cool stuff.  It really was bulletproof.  If I worked in a bank, I remember thinking, I would have felt pretty good about all this, hunkered down behind that green translucent armor.  John Dillinger?  No big deal. Bulletproof glass, see?

Okay, I thought, enough pussy-footing around (can you even say that any more?).  It was time to call up the heavy artillery.  I loaded the Ruger GSR with one of my .308 cartridges using a 173-grain full metal jacket bullet and drew a bead.  You know, just to see what would happen.  Sight alignment.  Front sight focus.  Breath control.  Concentration.  Slow, steady squeeze, and BOOOOM!!!

You know, a .357 Magnum is a powerful handgun, and you can sort of feel its power in the air when a round lights off.  But when you hear a .308 rifle let loose, there’s no comparison.   It’s God calling, and He wants to talk to YOU.  You damn well better be paying attention.  Firing a high-powered rifle, you see, is a religious experience.

The result?  The .308 went through the “bulletproof” glass like it wasn’t even there, with severe spall on the exit side. It made a .30-caliber hole going into the pane and left a two-and-a-half-inch conical hole going out.  And that 173-grain copper-jacketed-boat-tailed projectile probably didn’t even notice what it had just whizzed through.  Good Gawd!

Spall from a shaped charge warhead, entering the armor plate on the left and exiting on the right. You can see how much bigger the exit hole is. And all that fragmentation spraying out to the right? That’s the armor itself, doing most of the damage inside the vehicle.

So, about that spall thing:  Spallation is what happens when a high-speed projectile encounters a brittle barrier.  It’s a cone of material that splinters into whatever you are shooting.   You’ve probably seen this without realizing what you were looking at if you’ve ever seen a window shot with a BB gun.  It’s the conical shaped hole on the opposite side of glass, the glass that shatters and flies in the direction of the BB (don’t ask me how I know this; let’s just say there were a lot of windows where I grew up that displayed classic spallation, and leave it at that).  Spallation is the same physics effect that does most of the damage in an enemy tank when you hit one with an antitank warhead (the tank’s armor “spalls” into the interior of the vehicle and completely ruins the rest of the day for the crew).  It’s what you see in that photo above.

Anyway, seeing that coned-out “bulletproof” pane really opened my eyes to the tremendous power a .308 rifle has over a .357 handgun.  Yeah, it was bulletproof glass, but only up to a point.  Bring enough gun, and bulletproof don’t mean diddly squat (“diddly squat” is a munitions term meaning of negligible value).  And while I’m expanding the lexicon here, I guess I’ll mention that “bring enough gun” probably applies to a lot of situations.  In this situation, bulletproof glass was no match for the Ruger GSR.  If I had been thinking, I would have grabbed a photo or two of that pane, but I wasn’t and I didn’t.  I was thinking if I was a pencil-necked geek of a bank teller and Dillinger walked in with a .308 rifle, I would probably pee my pants.

The bulletproof glass engineering evaluations aside, I had my Ruger GSR and you know I had to start testing its accuracy with different loads.  What I noticed right away is that the rear aperture sight on my rifle didn’t have enough range of adjustment.  With the rear sight cranked all the way over to the left, the rifle still shot to the right of my point of aim at 100 yards.  I thought maybe I could compensate for it with the right reload, but I couldn’t, so the rifle went back to Ruger.   They had it back to me in a couple of weeks after hogging out the stock to completely free float the barrel, and the problem was gone.  I thought they did an amateurish bit of woodworking on the warranty repair, but it sure did the trick.  The GSR shot to point of aim with the rear peep centered on the rifle.  I went through my standard load development program with a variety of loads and propellants, and one stood out.    Here’s the target I shot with it:

This is one of the best open sights targets I’ve ever shot. I put 15 rounds into the 10-ring at 100 yards with my Ruger GSR.  It almost looks like I made a sight adjustment on this target, but I did not. I probably held the rifle slightly differently on the last 5 rounds.

The load for the target you see above used 180-grain Nosler jacketed softpoint boattail bullets (their Part Number 27567), a 2.800-inch cartridge overall length, no crimp on the bullet, 40.0 grains of Varget propellant, a CCI 200 primer, and Remington brass.  The Nosler bullets are expensive, as I recall. I had them on the bench for probably 20 years or more and I just decided to use them up as part of the load development for the Ruger.  I still have a few left, and when I use them up I’ll buy more.

The Ruger GSRs list at around $1200 now on the Ruger website (the typical retail price is about $1000), and you can still find good deals on them. I’ve seen the .223 GSR go on sale for as little as $599 at Turner’s, our local gunstore chain here in California. That’s a hell of a deal. They are offered in more calibers, too, including the new 350 Legend and the 450 Bushmaster (two cartridges with which I have zero experience, but they sure seem cool).  The other calibers aside, the .308 is still the king in my opinion, and I sure can’t argue with its accuracy.  These are cool guns.  You need one.  Colonel Cooper was right.

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More Tales of the Gun here!

Henry Rifles: Made in America or not made at all…

Henry Single Shot rifles. The steel-framed ones have a conventional pistol grip stock. The brass-framed rifles have a straight grip. They are available in chamberings ranging from .223 to .45 70.

About four years ago I went to the range with my good buddy TK. TK is a cool guy and he had a rifle I didn’t know much about. It was a new .44 Magnum Henry lever action rifle with a brass receiver and, in a word, it was stunning. The brass and the bluing were highly polished, the walnut stock was highly figured, and wow, was it ever accurate. I’d seen Henry rifles before but I had never handled or fired one, and when TK let me shoot his…well, let me put it this way:  Wow!  TK was impressed with my marksmanship and so was I.  I put five .44 slugs through a hole you could cover with a quarter, and folks, with open sights, that’s good shooting.  The rifle looked, felt, handled, and shot the way a rifle should.

Just a couple of weeks ago, good buddy Greg and I were on the range again and Greg had a new toy. He had recently purchased an older Harrington and Richardson break open rifle in .223, and it was nice. Harrington and Richardson stopped making their rifles some time ago, and I always thought having one in .45 70 would be the right thing to do.  But I had never gotten around to scratching that itch.  Maybe it was time to do something about that, I thought.

I like the concept of break open rifle, and I love the concept of a single shot. They are just cool. You have to make every shot count, and that’s appealing to me.  A Ruger No. 1 or a Ruger No. 3 single shot rifle has always been my first choice.  There’s something about a single shot rifle that floats my boat.

Seeing Greg’s H&R single shot .223 got me to thinking about Henry rifles again, probably because I’d seen something on the web about Henry having introduced a new single shot. I remembered the quality of TK’s Henry, and I love the break open configuration I was seeing on Greg’s H&R.  It reminded me of my very first rifle…a .177 caliber pellet gun I’ve had since I was a kid wandering the woods in New Jersey.  What I had in mind was a Henry single shot rifle with a brass frame chambered in .45 70 (one of the world’s all-time great cartridges).  Throw in some fancy walnut, and it would be perfect.  It would be just what the doctor ordered.

One of the artisan’s at the Henry plant handling a .45 70 single shot rifle. Check out the walnut!

Hmmmm.  Brass.  Walnut.  .45 70.  The wheels were turning, and that prompted a visit to Henry’s website.  What’s this?  A contact form?  Hmmmm again.  Would it be possible to get a Henry Single Shot in .45 70, brass framed, with hand-selected walnut?  Well, it seems the Henry folks had checked out our ExNotes gun page, and the answer was swift: Yep, they could help me on this.

So, to make a long story a little less long, I’ve been corresponding with Henry USA and I bought one of their brass frame single shot rifles. The good folks at Henry assured me it will have nice walnut. I’m talking to the Henry marketing director to learn a little more about the company tomorrow and I’ll be posting a blog about that in the near future. I’ll soon have a new Henry rifle in the ExNotes armory, and you can bet I’m going to have lots to say about it.

Stay tuned, folks. You’ll read all about it right here.

Check out our Tales of the Gun!

Do you feel lucky?

The year was 1971 and I was 20 years old.  Those were the good old days.   Movies were wildly entertaining, it was real easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys, movie stars kept their political opinions to themselves, and being politically correct hadn’t been invented yet.  And the movies were better for it.  To me, there’s one movie in particular that stands out:  Dirty Harry.

Dirty Harry was an exceptional movie for its time and it was an iconic role for Eastwood:  Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Police Department.  Eastwood went on to make several Dirty Harry movies.  The Callahan role propelled Eastwood’s career enormously.  But Callahan was only one of two stars in Dirty Harry.  The other was Smith and Wesson’s Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver.   Much as I like Clint Eastwood, I liked the Model 29 better, and yep, I bought a Model 29 after seeing Dirty Harry.  I’ll get to that in a minute.

Susie and I were flipping through movies on Netflix a few nights ago and  Dirty Harry was on the menu.   “Put it on,” Sue said, with some resignation.  “You know you want to watch it.”  She was right.  I did.  Before I get into the Model 29 and all that, watch the video clip below.  It’s a classic bit of tough guyism, and it’s a scene a lot of guys like me burned into our mental firmware.

So…back to the Model 29.   Before Dirty Harry, Smith and Wesson didn’t quite know what to do with their Model 29.   The police didn’t want it (the .44 Magnum is wildly overpowered as a police cartridge), nearly everyone who tried the cartridge back then took a pass, and the gun just kind of languished at the dealers.  Oh, I know you read Elmer Keith and you’re a keyboard commando and all that, but let me tell you…in the ’50s (when the .44 Magnum was introduced) and on into the ’60s, nobody was buying them.  The guns retailed in the mid-$150 range in those early years, but they just weren’t moving.  Then Dirty Harry hit the big screen, and everything changed.  Whaddaya know, everyone wanted a Model 29.  I know.  I was one of them.  I was there.

You couldn’t find a Model 29 anywhere after Dirty Harry.  It was product placement before anyone knew what product placement was, and all those N-frame Smiths gathering dust in dealer showcases vanished.  In 1971 the MSRP for a new Model 29 was $183, but all that changed after Dirty Harry.  They were going for $500 when you could find one on the used gun market, and that wasn’t very often.  Everyone wanted to be Dirty Harry Callahan, including me.  But I had an “in.”  I had people.  My father was an Olympic-class competitive trap shooter and he had contacts in the gun world. Dad put the word out and one of his buddies (a firearms wholesaler in south Jersey) had a brand new Model 29 (if I wanted it, he said) at the discounted price of $150.  If I wanted it.  Like I could say no.  It’s good to know people, and I was in.  Inspector Callahan, move over.

My Model 29. It’s a beautiful handgun and it’s a good shooter. I bought the custom grips at a gun show in Dallas back in the 1970s.

I shot the hell out of that Model 29 in New Jersey and then in Texas when I went in the Army, until it loosened up so much I didn’t want to shoot it any more.  I put a notice up on a bulletin board at Fort Bliss and the next day an artillery captain bought it from me for, you guessed it, $500.   I no longer owned a Model 29, but that was only a temporary situation.  I reached out to my peeps back in New Jersey (it was my home of record and I was still a legal resident) and a week later I had another new Model 29.  It’s the one I have today and the one you see in these photos.

The early Model 29s were of impeccable quality. Note the rollmarking and how it is free of any distortion or metal upset around the letters.  Check out the deep blue.  These are amazing handguns.

So when Sue and I watched Dirty Harry the other night, I realized it had been more than a few years since I shot my Model 29.   I checked the ammo locker and I had some .44 Magnum ammo I had reloaded back in 2012.  I dug the Model 29 out of the safe that evening, and the next day I was on the range.  You know what?  I still do a pretty good Dirty Harry.  Inspector Callahan has nothing on me.

Five-shot groups at 50 feet on an Alco target. I shot the upper left target first and scored a decent group that was high right.  The rear sight was way to the right, so I centered it and shot a second group at the same target. I moved over to the target on the right, then down to the left target on the bottom row. Ah, one went high on that one, but I was getting familiar with the Model 29 again.  My last group was the lower right target, and that’s how you do it.  The load was the 240-grain Speer swaged semi-wadcutter over 5.6 grains of Bullseye (light for a .44 Magnum, but still enough to get your attention).  Even Dirty Harry didn’t shoot full-bore .44 Magnum loads!

So back to that opening Dirty Harry scene…you know, the “Do you feel lucky, punk?” bit.  It is classic Hollywood tough guy babble, but I had no idea of its reach until we had a bunch of Chinese guys come over from Zongshen to ride across the United States (you can and should read about that in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM).   We had a couple of days to kill before starting our epic journey, and when we asked the Chinese what they wanted to do, their answer was immediate:  We want to shoot a gun.  You know.  ‘Murica, and all that.  Hey, I was only too happy to oblige and we were off to the gun club.  After sending a lot of lead downrange with a Ruger Mini 14, our Chinese guests then wanted to visit a gun store (the full American experience, you know), so we rolled over to Bass Pro.

I was a little nervous because the Chinese like to take pictures (and guys like me don’t like anyone, especially foreigners, taking our pictures in gun stores).  Our Chinese guests were cool when I told them to put their cameras away, but I need not have worried.  The Bass Pro folks were intrigued by all of this when we walked in.  They invited our Chinese guests to take all the photos they wanted, and then they allowed them to handle the guns.  That was really cool. One of the Bass Pro sales dudes gave Hugo, the young Zongshen rep, a monstrous .500 Smith and Wesson revolver.  The Chinese guys had their cameras on Hugo in a heartbeat as he handled that massive hand cannon.  Hugo knew what to do.  With a slight Chinese accent (but otherwise perfect English) he was transformed.  Hugo became Dirty Harry:

I know what you guys are thinking.  Did I fire six shots, or only five?  Tell the truth, in all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself.  What you need to ask yourself is:  Do I feel lucky? 

Well, do ya, punk?

Hugo was amazing and we all (me, the Chinese guys, and the Bass Pro staff) had a good laugh.  Hugo was born on the other side of the world a good 30 years after Dirty Harry hit the big screen, but he knew that line perfectly.  And he knew it was part of the whole Smith and Wesson schtick.  I guess it’s no small wonder.  It was both the opening and closing scenes of Dirty Harry.  Take a look:

Me?  I still have my Model 29, and I can still hit the target with it.  I still feel lucky, too.

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