Henry Rifle Forums

Took it out to the range today. Luckily my first two shots almost covered each other! They were just a tad low and right of center. I was trying to get it dialed in when on the 10th shot or so I had a case get stuck in the chamber. I'm very finicky about my handloads always taking time to make sure all rounds fit in the L.E. Wilson gage. This was a Federal round that I guess I either loaded once too many times or a bit too much powder. Anyway, I took a .40 bronze brush and got the stuck casing out. I'll post a target after I get out and get it dialed in. The Marlin 783 performed well as usual.

interesting .... do you full case resize .. .. did the case show any cracks .. .. I'm curious because I've never had that happen

No, didn't notice any sign of crack. Yes, I size with Lyman dies in a press. I don't think Wilson makes a handloading die for that caliber. I ejected the round and the rim came out and rest of the case stayed in! I'll start taking some tools to the range with me.

Shakey Jake wrote:I ejected the round and the rim came out and rest of the case stayed in!

that sounds like a "catastrophic" case failure .... I've heard of that being caused by accidentally double charging a shell .... of course, it could have been perfectly charged and still have failed for any other number of reasons

That could be a headspace issue. I had that happen to a Win. 66 replica in .38 Spcl. The toggle link action couldn't handle the factory .38 hollow point load. I think a trip back to the factory might be in order.

Yep! Going to make me look closer at my other loads. I'm going to make a stuck case remover for it out of a case. They don't make them for .327 but looking at the ones listed on Brownells it looks like it can be easily done. I'll turn down some brass on the lathe to shape like the commercial ones and solder into a case. That way if it happens again at the range I can just use it.

Travlin wrote:That could be a headspace issue. I had that happen to a Win. 66 replica in .38 Spcl. The toggle link action couldn't handle the factory .38 hollow point load. I think a trip back to the factory might be in order.

I was thinking the same thing myself.

After thinking of things I took the gun apart again today and polished the hell out of the chamber. I did notice there was a "ring" in the chamber where the case separated (powder and other debris I suppose). I took some solvent and nylon brush and got 90% of it out and got the rest with Flitz and J-B lead remover. I followed that with solvent to clean everything up. It's all nice and shiny now. I'm still thinking I may have to send back if either/or two things happen: 1) I keep getting "failure to fire" problems. I had one of the ten yesterday not go off the first time. and 2) if I have this broken case thing happen again.

years ago I had 357 S&W through which I mostly fired 38's .... after a while I had a problem chambering 357's .... as you mentioned, I did have a buildup of burnt powder that formed such rings in the cylinder's chambers .... a good bit of elbow grease took care of the problem .... after that, I switched to only using 357 cases and don't recall ever having that problem again

I went out again this morning to try and dial in the scope a bit more. Don't know if it was the wind (really gusty today) or just me but I could group very well today so just left it alone after a bit and shot up the rest of the reloads to get rid of them. I shot 50 rounds and of those 50 I had 5 failure to fire the first time. The second time they all went off when I manually pulled back the hammer. Don't know if that's big enough of an issue to send back to Henry or not. I'm really disappointed in the rifle. I've never had one behave this way, but being honest, will probably not ever purchase another Henry. It's becoming a pain in the backside. I'll post another target when I have a day to go out that it's not so windy and I have some factory ammo to work with.

over time I've had a few reloads that didn't go off the first time but did the second .... my theory was I'd not fully seated the primers .... the first hit finished the job and the second set them off .....I can't prove that one way or the other .... my thinking was with almost all going off as they should, the problem with the others was most likely the fault of my ammo

You can't complain if you won't give H.R.A. a chance to fix it. I wouldn't mention that you had trouble with handloads.