Thread: My Henry .22 Lever Action Isn't So Bad

I bought a Henry 001 walnut/blued .22 LR lever action about 13 months ago. After I got it I read a few posts from folks who don't seem to have a wonderful opinion of these rifles.

I've used mine quite a bit. If I don't work the lever relatively quickly, the cartridge can climb out of alignment with the chamber and it won't feed. But now that I'm used to the rifle I have very little trouble.

It is fun to shoot, and I regard it as a great firearm to take out when you want to give a new shooter a good time.

From my experiences as a fitter-turner (and having seen cars that had crappy muck-metal window-winders that broke etc etc), I don't hold die-cast metal in high regard. And the Henry has die-cast components. The barrel and bolt are steel, but there is plenty of cast alloy. However the rifle functions well and it seems to be far from worn out. And with the price of ammo nowadays it is likely to last a lot longer than it might have twenty years ago.

Not long ago I'd have been horrified to see plastic components in a rifle. Now I'm used to it. My Howa magazine, for instance, works really well. So I've become somewhat accepting of firearms that are made of more than wood and blued steel. The 'new' firearms made of all sorts of stuff still enable me to hunt and shoot..... which, for me, is what it is all about.

It isn't in the 'most accurate' class of .22 rifles that I've played with, but it isn't too bad. Having read horror stories about Henry .22 groups opening right up after a couple of shots, I thought I'd test mine. I bought a cheap scope and some decent rings and went to the range today. I fired many cartridges and enjoyed making bits of broken clay pigeon dance around. I also got serious and sat at the bench to shoot some groups. I didn't adopt a full bench-rest hold, I just rested my forearm on the jack'n'bag supplied on the bench. I tried several types of ammo. Here are three of the groups (unfortunately I'm not sure which ammo was used on each target now, but I think the best group was CCI subsonic):

rabbit ammo...havent seen that in years.

Yeah... that box of Rabbit Ammo might be forty or more years old. I like the look of the stuff, but because I only have the one part-box, I don't use it. The ammo I've used the most over the last decade or two is Winchester Subsonic / Kilwell Whisper.

i bought a henry 22 la, didnt group.
swapped it over for a chiappa, never made it passed 10 rounds without falling to bits internally
now have a blr-22. perfection

Hmm. Didn't know that there was a .22 BLR. I can believe that it is a good one. Years ago I knew a guy who had a Miroku lever action .22 which I think is related. He thought it was pretty good.

Originally Posted by Coote

Hmm. Didn't know that there was a .22 BLR. I can believe that it is a good one. Years ago I knew a guy who had a Miroku lever action .22 which I think is related. He thought it was pretty good.

mines the octagonal barrel with nickel plated receiver , walnut stock .
has a 30 degree lever pull !

see if you can find the winchester superspeed...similar stuff.

Browning BL22/Miroku ML22 (same rifle - manufactured by Miroku), Winchester 9422, Marlin 39A, and Ruger model 96 are all excellent wee 22LR lever actions.
My own favourite is the classic Winny 9422 - had a pair of them in 22LR and 22WMR - but its really a matter of personal preference which you choose. No wrong answers - all good.

* Note there may be BL22/ML22 variants I don't know about...