Henry Rifles

[TTv2]

Howdy Again

Happy Trails is hardly some guy in his garage. Before he retired he was a well known Cowboy Action Shooting gunsmith. He is so clever that he was able to redesign the way S&W Top Break revolvers rotate their cylinders. With a S&W Top Break if the trigger is prevented from popping forward when the hammer is cocked, the hand will jam and the hammer cannot be cocked. This prevents slip hammering or fanning, which can be easily done with a Colt style lockwork. I can't tell you how many times I have accidentally had my finger on the trigger of one of my antique Smiths and it reminded me to take my finger off the trigger so I could cock the hammer. Happy Trails redesigned the lockwork for both the modern replicas and the originals so the hammer could be cocked even if the trigger was held back. I did not have Hap modify my antiques, but I know several guys who did have him modify their modern replicas.

Anyway, Hap came up with the modification to the toggle link carriers in conjunction with Adirondack Jack, who created the 45 Cowboy Special brass. Jack sent a drawing on the back of an envelope to Hap, and he modified a carrier on his miller. After it was perfected he contracted with a machine shop to produce them for him to sell on his website.

I cannot speak for the Henry Big Boy, I do not own one and never will. I understand the mechanism of a Henry is basically the same as the mechanism of a Marlin Model 1894. I do have a few of those.

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Marlins have a tilting carrier, not much different than a Winchester Model 1892 carrier, except Marlins and Henry Big Boys eject to the side. Here is a photo of a 44-40 round being fed into the chamber of an antique Marlin Model 1894. I suspect it would not be very difficult to reconfigure a Marlin carrier to accept a shorter cartridge such as the 45 Cowboy Special. If so it would probably be fairly simple to do the same with a Henry Big Boy.

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However I think you are barking up the wrong tree with the 38 Short Colt. The 38 Short Colt had a heeled bullet that required a special die to crimp the bullet into the case.

The only place I am aware of to obtain a mold and crimp die for a heeled bullet for 38 Short Colt is Old West Bullet Molds.

I doubt many prospective owners would be interested in reloading such an unusual cartridge.

https://oldwestbulletmoulds.com/shop/ols/products/38-colt-mould-and-crimp-die-set

Starline does make brass for 38 Short Colt.

I wasn't talking about the heeled .38 Short Colt. I know Remington still loads the .38 Short Colt and they're not using heeled bullets. Otherwise, I'd agree with you, nobody is looking to use a heeled bullet in a lever action and thus wouldn't have bothered talking about it.

Fair enough on Hap, I didn't know he had a contract with a local machine shop. That to me speaks enough to the quality.

 

[TTv2]

C.E. (Ed) Harris had Marlin 94s (modern reissue) converted to .45 ACP. It looked like a lot of work.

An oddity of USPSA rules has made a place for .38 Short Colt in 8 shot revolvers. The short case ejects better.
The racegunners are not loading heel bullets, they just treat .38 SC brass like a reduced .38 Special and load it to Minor power factor. Which must be +P+ in that little case.
A real revolver cartridge has advantages over 9mm in an 8 shooter. I think some of the guys are even using .38 SC brass in their 9mm cylinders after realizing that.

This is exactly what I'm thinking about, but apparently there are people who have no idea that a modern .38 Short Colt exists, nor that they've found a niche in racegun competitions due to the faster and more positive ejection. Given the use in those competitions it's not like .38 SC brass is hard to come by, nor incapable of withstanding .357 Magnum pressures as Starline has told people who've contacted them in the past they're capable of it. So, a short case like the .38 SC pushed to a high pressure in a rifle that could hold 17 of them would make for a very nice CAS gun.

Same could go for the .45 Cowboy as Starline is using the same brass as their .45 Colt which they say on their website is capable of handling .44 Mag pressures. Would have more power than .38 SC, but hold a few less rounds in the tube.

The .45 ACP conversions done on manual machines would take a lot of work, but if this was done in a production factory on modern machine tools, it wouldn't be anymore difficult to manufacture than any other lever action that uses a rimless cartridge. The taper crimp may be an issue, but I doubt it. I doubt that the bullets would get pushed in any further if the taper crimp was heavy enough and they certainly wouldn't be able to be jump crimp given the bullets are held in place by the case behind it and ahead of it.

 

[Jim Watson]

Chicken or egg? The gunmakers won't build a rifle unless they are assured of ammo for it, the ammunition companies won't load ammo without something to shoot it in. It would have to be a collaborative coordinated introduction.
Magtech does load something they call ".38 Special Short" that would be a start, though.

17 shots would be of no advantage in CAS unless everybody got one to make rewriting the CoFs feasible.

Ed Harris said he would not shoot .45 ACP hardball in his conversions due to worries about the FMJ against the next primer. Not even single shot over a chronograph for comparison in the long barrel.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

17 shots would be of no advantage in CAS unless everybody got one to make rewriting the CoFs feasible.

That is correct. As I stated earlier, although it is not an official rule, CAS scenarios pretty much by default limit the number of rounds in the rifle to 10. Every once in a blue moon there may be a reload on the clock, but that does not affect how many rounds you load in the first place. Years ago we used to occasionally have a scenario that would require 12 rounds in the rifle. Then we would all be at the loading table making sure we put an extra two rounds in our rifles. Most 24" lever guns have a capacity of 13 rounds in the magazine. We stopped having those 12 round scenarios years ago because it put the guys with 20" short rifles and carbines at a disadvantage. They would have to stop and reload while the rest of us just kept levering away. But these days, 10 rounds in the magazine is pretty much standard everywhere. Everywhere I shoot anyway. The only real reason guys were interested in having their rifles chambered for a shorter cartridge such as 45 Cowboy Special, or 44 Russian is because the cartridge more closely resembled the original 44 Henry Rimfire cartridge in length and power. Nothing to do with loading 17 rounds in the magazine on Sunday and shooting all week.

Regarding modernized versions of the old 38 Short Colt, sorry I am not up on the latest race gun requirements in other sports, the only shooting competitions I take part in are Cowboy Action and 16 yard singles Trap. Not a whole lot of call for 38 Short Colt in those disciplines.

And I state again, the reason the 1860 Henry is only chambered for 45 and 44 caliber cartridges is because it is a very HEAVY rifle. The barrel and magazine are machined from one solid bar of steel, rather than the magazine being a lightweight tube suspended under the barrel. I don't have my Henry handy at this moment to weigh it, but I can tell you that a 24" 1860 Henry weighs a full pound more than a 24" Winchester Model 1873 chambered for the same caliber. And '73 weighs a full pound more than a Model 1892 of similar barrel length and chambering. That is why there are no 1860 Henry rifles chambered for 38 Special, the smaller bore makes for an even heavier rifle. The same would be true for a Henry chambered for 38 Short Colt. It would weigh even more than one chambered for 44 or 45. So none are made. I suppose if somebody wanted a Trapper version of the Henry, chambered for 38 Short Colt, but short enough to only carry 10 rounds, it would not be so heavy.

But then what would be the point? Oh, I know, so it would more closely resemble a Volcanic chambered for a 38 caliber Rocket Ball.

One other thing. Sometimes we have knock down targets. These are nominally set so that a center hit from a 38 Special will reliably knock them down. Hit one of these targets with a 44 or 45 and it will go down. Hit it with a lightly loaded 38 Special and it may or may not go down. It is impossible to set these targets so they will always reliably go down with light hits, they just are not designed that way. Dunno what would happen if a bullet from a 38 Short Colt hit one, whether it would go down or not.