Henry 45-70 Colour Case Hardened, Range Report

Bolt action rifles, lever action, pump action, self loading rifles and other miscellaneous longarms.

Re: Henry 45-70 Colour Case Hardened, Range Report

Post by Deacon » 12 Sep 2016, 2:01 pm

There's just something about 45-70 that gets me all giddy. I'm currently looking at a 357 lever gun and after seeing this among other things I think a Henry is the way to go. Hopefully one day I will have the time to reload or the money for factory ammunition in 45-70 so I too can put big holes in stuff. Thanks for sharing this Supaduke!
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Re: Henry 45-70 Colour Case Hardened, Range Report

Post by in2anity » 12 Sep 2016, 2:41 pm

Deacon wrote:There's just something about 45-70 that gets me all giddy. I'm currently looking at a 357 lever gun and after seeing this among other things I think a Henry is the way to go. Hopefully one day I will have the time to reload or the money for factory ammunition in 45-70 so I too can put big holes in stuff. Thanks for sharing this Supaduke!


The beauty of straight walls is that you can bypass lubrication if you use a carbide die. If you have a big enough progressive press, you can handle every step from start to finish, i.e. deprime->prime->flare->charge->seat->crimp.

And considering most .357s can shoot 38sp, with cast lead and TB, you can get your reloading costs down to 22lr territory at around 12c / round! The ultimate plinking setup IMO!
At what point does lack of maintenance become patina?
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Re: Henry 45-70 Colour Case Hardened, Range Report

Post by Supaduke » 12 Sep 2016, 3:45 pm

I can say that the loading tube was not an issue. For hunting you can load 5 in the tube (Henry says 4 ,to avoid over compression of the mag spring I guess) and drop one in the chamber for 6 rounds of 45-70. Nothing that walks this planet is getting up after 6 rounds of 45-70. If it does, the zombie apocalypse has begun and we all know you should double tap the head.

With a little practice, tube feeding is actually very quick. Hold the rifle upside down with your support hand. Twist and slide the tube with your other hand and expose the gate. Grab four shells, clink,clink,clink,clink. They go in very easily. Slide and twist closed, rack, point, fire. I think if I was in a hurry I could do it in about 10 secs.

When shooting off hand I loaded the tube. When shooting off the bag I usually single fed, which was easy to do.

For sh1ts and giggles at the range it's really hard to beat a lever gun. Shooting groups with a scope is fun. But shooting a lever off hand at short to moderate range is a real hoot, especially at some sort of reactive target. I like clays and milk bottles full of water.
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Re: Henry 45-70 Colour Case Hardened, Range Report

Post by bigpete » 13 Sep 2016, 8:56 am

Love it ! So does it hold 4 or 5 in the mag ? How heavy is it ?
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Re: Henry 45-70 Colour Case Hardened, Range Report

Post by Supaduke » 13 Sep 2016, 9:31 am

It will hold 5, but Henry recommends 4.
For occasional hunting use I would think loading 5 would not overly stress the mag spring. At the range I just load 3 or single feed.
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