henry 357 steel big boy first 2 trips

[roval]

bought the above rifle a couple of weeks ago. first time on the range I fed it 158 gr swc and rn 158 gr powder coated reloads without any issues. Had to spend some time zeoring it as the buckhorn sights had the insert too low and I couldn't raise the rear sight far enough to get on paper at 50 yrds till I raised the insert itself quite a bit and also had to drift the rear sight quite a bit. all rounds fed ok. when I got home cleaned gun from the muzzle and oiled the gun and loosened the set screws and applied blue Loctite.

went to the range again yesterday but I had to rezero including having to redrift the rear sight. the sights must have moved when I loosened the screws to apply Loctite. don't know how but they did... the irritating thing was the gun wouldn't feed. the cartridge carriage didn't angle up and lift far enough to chamber the round. it would only go halfway up. I had to handfeed the rounds. otherwise the bolt will just scratch up the brass as the round is still under the bolt when it moves forward.

it was very windy and dirt got in the action and so when I got home, I decided to remove the lever and the bolt and extractor to allow cleaning from the breech. ( the gun wasn't feeding before the wind picked up). I cleaned the gun. not too much crud in the action. When I reassembled the gun it started working again with the carriage going all the way up and it had no problems cycling my 6 snap caps.

so for now working again but frustrating when I couldn't find out what the problem was in the first place. anybody have any idea what the problem is?

accuracy wise hard to say since I've pretty much spent the 2 range sessions zeroing the gun and the sights leave much to be desired but I will check out accuracy next time. I did have to file the sight insert to have a bigger and deeper v to get a better sight picture. I shoot with my regular prescription glasses and I never get crisp sight pictures but I seem to get a more fuzzy picture with this than with my M1a (before I scoped it) and my cz 455 22 lr. it has to do with the sight radius and my eyes so not the guns fault.

I really thought I'd have a ton of fun with this gun from the get go but so far I'm still waiting for the fun to begin.

 

[Jason_W]

A lot of lever guns have trouble cycling lead SWC ammo. I had a pre-remington 1894c that choked on SWC every time in both .38 spl. and .357 mag.

 

[roval]

It wasn't the round, it was the carriage. Even roundnose bullets wouldnt feed. It's working again for now just not sure what went wrong and how it got fixed.

 

[redbullitt]

Any chance the OAL of the rounds was goofy? The pistol caliber lever guns I have used can be picky about length of the cartridge. Does not sound like the case with what you describe though... that is always my first thing to check in my levers.

Not sure why the action would do something goofy then stop. How about the rate you worked the lever? Some lever guns take a little extra speed on the lever. Any binding or anything like that?

Sounds like it may be time to pull the rifle apart and look for burs or machining oopsies. I had to do that with a 357 rossi 92. Hated that gun until I took it apart fully and cleaned up the parts. It runs great now and is probably my most shot rifle these days. Keep on it! Glad I did with mine.

 

[roval]

I could actually see the carriage not going all the way up when it wasn't working whereas it was working fine the previous trip. It's working now as I mentioned after I removed and reinstalled the lever. I think tilting the receiver to the left had something to do with it. Like something shifted this was even when no rounds were in place. still wouldn't lift all the way up. Did this with fast working of the lever and with slow.

If I knew what to tighten I'd feel more comfortable with the issue.
One minor issue prevented the trigger from being pulled durng thefirst 50 rounds was the pin on the plunger in the lever backing out and preventing the lever from going all the way back in thus binding up the trigger. This is OK with me since I could be on the lookout for it before it can cause a problem.

 

[roval]

Resurrecting the thread for a ffup up. First time back on the range with the lever gun after the feeding problem last trip . Today had no problems feeding both round nose and swc.

Still can't shoot it properly, at 50 yrds I hit my target more with my pistol offlhand than with the rifle shooting offhand. On the bench it is zeroed.