Henry Rifle Forums

Taking a different direction tomorrow and taking my .223 NEF Handi-Rifle out for some paper punching and pine cone killing!
Cleaning and loading up some ammo later for it.
The Handi-Rifles are/were a real 'sleeper' in the world of rifles in general being single shot and only appealing to a few of 'us' - but not any more.
Remington dropped the Handi-Rifle from their lineup a couple years ago and the new ones disappeared from stores like a puff of smoke in the wind.
I got lucky and found a very nice used one in .223 (before they were dropped for $150).
I would recommend to any of you gun shop/pawnshop junkies who 'make the rounds' to see whats for sale keep your eye out for one if you are so inclined. The 'big three' rare ones are the .357 Mag, .30-30 Winchester and the .223 like mine.
Anyway they are very well made with a fairly decent trigger (some vary in pull and creep) but this can be improved.
Only two minor problems with these are if a scope is mounted (and some - like my .223 have no sights at all and are intended for a scope) a hammer extension is almost a necessity and a potentially 'dangerous' problem is the shell ejector. When you open the action the shell is kicked out with a fair amount of force and could hit the users eye - or chip a tooth. Most owners know well enough to move the action away when opening it or place their hand in front of it to catch the shell case. There is a fix for this however I plan to accomplish on mine.

You know, I've always admired those Handi rifles and meant to get one. Just never got around to it. Had some shooting friends who loved them and raved about them, even though they had much more expensive rifles.

I had 'sort of' been looking for one in .357 but thats over now since they have been transmogrified into 'unobtanium' !

One of my shooting friends bought a Handi-rifle in 223 and put a straight 4x Leupold on it. He said I believe this thing would really shoot with more scope on it. One day he pulled a 4-12 Leupold off another rifle and put it on the Handi 223 and with hand loads it did right around 1/2" groups at a 100 yards. A month later he traded it off for a shotgun. These little rifles rifles would open some eyes like a Thompson/Center Contender will.

I had one find me about 6 years ago.
My local "Fun Shop" called to tell me they had one in because I was the only person they knew for a fact that would be interested in such a boomer.
Mine is chambered for .500 S&W magnum.

Great little single-shot.

Well got out with my Handi-Rifle today and better than expected results. At 50 yards on paper it was shooting nearly one hole so after about 20 shots I started scoping the hillside for random targets when I saw what 'kind of' looked like one of our ubiquitous 'sage rats' setting on the end of a dead branch off of a stump. I looked at it both through my scope and binos and while it looked like one it wasn't moving. So I aimed low into the ground thinking to startle it with a shot into the dirt spraying up on it. I fired and no movement. So I loaded again and decided to put one into the stump to see if that would get it moving (if it was in fact a rodent - which I still couldn't tell) Ok - shot hits the stump and wood flies and no movement so I am convinced it is just a section of the stump that looks like a rodent so I load again and take aim at what would would have been the 'head' and fire - and I see something fall lazily from the stump. I decide to walk up to in and see what it was and I was surprised to discover it WAS in fact a very large sage rat that unfortunately lost it's head! Odd because these things are usually quite active and don't stand around long and they are all typically burrowed underground by now so it was odd it was still above ground this time of the year. These are shot in great numbers by people who have access to private ranches with alfalfa fields where they can number into the many THOUSANDS and some landowners allow people to shoot them for a fee. Some can be found on public land in the National Forest but they tend to really like the alfalfa fields.

I think I have the Handi-Rifle dialed in!