Henry Rifle Forums

has anyone tried firing 38 or 357 wadcutter bullets through their Henry ..?.. if so, comments/evaluations would be appreciated

Most lever guns are not design to feed wad cutter to feed . Most lever gun don't like short ammo . Looking at the ammo in your pic you need a Lyman M-die . There is lead all over the case mouth and your crimp . I shoot 130 and 140 round nose that work flawless .

I load copper plated wadcutters and shoot them from a Ruger Black Hawk at our annual club pistol competition but never considered shooting them in a .357 rifle. I only shoot magnum loads in My Henry steel .357. Not sure how a wadcutter would do at magnum velocities.

tx gunrunner wrote:Most lever guns are not design to feed wad cutter to feed . Most lever gun don't like short ammo . Looking at the ammo in your pic you need a Lyman M-die . There is lead all over the case mouth and your crimp . I shoot 130 and 140 round nose that work flawless .

that is basically what I figured but wasn't sure .... it was easier to pull the picture from the web than to did some out and take pictures of our reloads .... ours do look much cleaner ..

Steve51 wrote:I load copper plated wadcutters and shoot them from a Ruger Black Hawk at our annual club pistol competition but never considered shooting them in a .357 rifle. I only shoot magnum loads in My Henry steel .357. Not sure how a wadcutter would do at magnum velocities.

our sons fire buckets full of them (light loads) through their Ruger GP100's .... we will be giving a Henry 357 to our grandson next month .... he does well with first his BB gun and now any one of several 22's .... as noted before on this forum, I've not allowed him to fire a rifle with a kick and don't plan to do so for a while longer .... because of this he has no fear of recoil which allows him to concentrate on his mechanics and safety .... until we begin preparing him to go deer hunting with his father (one of our sons), he will be shooting light 38 loads in the Henry

IMHO, I feel you should practice w/what you'll use in "the field". All ammo types/loads/bullet type/weight effect how POI is.
Practicing, aiming, sighting all can vary from different bullets. And if you load SWC are not much cheaper.

Yeah I'd be really surprised if the lever gun fed the wadcutters reliably. Guess it can't hurt to try though right?

DWD445 wrote:IMHO, I feel you should practice w/what you'll use in "the field". All ammo types/loads/bullet type/weight effect how POI is.
Practicing, aiming, sighting all can vary from different bullets. And if you load SWC are not much cheaper.

understood, that is a philosophy I held for many years .... my hunting pistol of choice is a Ruger Redhawk 44 mag with 7.5" barrel .... for over 30 years I fired nothing but hunting level ammo .... the same was true for my hunting rifles .... over time I've drifted away from rigidly doing so .... as but one example, I can economically and physically get in many more practice rounds out of our 300 WBY Mag with lighter loads than I can with full power loads ....I've come to believe it is much more important to become so familiar with the operation of the firearm that I can deliver the first shot where it needs to be and for me, the best way to ensure that is to fire as many practice rounds as possible .... now I practice with milder ammo, when needed I adjust the scope for high power ammo and go hunting .... the picture I see in the scope is the same, adjusting it puts the point of impact where I want it .... the same will be true for our 45-70, in the end I will fire thousands of practice rounds to every hunting round .... I don't disagree with the same practice/hunting ammo concept but for me it no longer is the way I choose to go

as an experiment, I just put three empty 38 shell casings in our Henry 357 .... to my surprise when I worked the lever, they loaded and ejected

If I had a Henry .357 I'd make it prove to me it wouldn't feed wadcutter ammo. That is some of the best small game ammo out there at least in a good .38 or .357!!!

Interesting comments, Frank V. I didn't know that wadcutter ammo "is some of the best small game ammo out there..." What do you hunt with it?

Also to clarify for me; I wasn't sure on this. When you say "in a good .38 or .357," are you referring to a rifle or revolver?

Frank V wrote:If I had a Henry .357 I'd make it prove to me it wouldn't feed wadcutter ammo. That is some of the best small game ammo out there at least in a good .38 or .357!!!

Frank V wrote:If I had a Henry .357 I'd make it prove to me it wouldn't feed wadcutter ammo. That is some of the best small game ammo out there at least in a good .38 or .357!!!

we have a thousand or so loaded and components necessary to assemble many, many times more .... our sons fire them in their GP100's and can go through a bunch in a hurry .... we do plan to load some in our grandson's Henry 357 in order to see if they will work or not

PT7 wrote:Interesting comments, Frank V. I didn't know that wadcutter ammo "is some of the best small game ammo out there..." What do you hunt with it?

Also to clarify for me; I wasn't sure on this. When you say "in a good .38 or .357," are you referring to a rifle or revolver?

Frank V wrote:If I had a Henry .357 I'd make it prove to me it wouldn't feed wadcutter ammo. That is some of the best small game ammo out there at least in a good .38 or .357!!!

Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant handgun, I've never had a .357 rifle.
I've hunted Squirrles, muskrats, various pest squirrles, & I think it'd work to animals about the size of a skunk.

Frank V wrote: Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant handgun, I've never had a .357 rifle.
I've hunted Squirrles, muskrats, various pest squirrles, & I think it'd work to animals about the size of a skunk.

There are non-pest squirrels?

I've always been recommended wadcutter ammo for reduced recoil. Either for practice in my snubby 38 or for cowboy action shooting. Haven't heard of using it for hunting.

clovishound wrote:

Frank V wrote: Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant handgun, I've never had a .357 rifle.
I've hunted Squirrles, muskrats, various pest squirrles, & I think it'd work to animals about the size of a skunk.

There are non-pest squirrels?

Grey Squirrels are very good eating. They'd still be pests in a garden though.

Frank V wrote:

clovishound wrote:

Frank V wrote: Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant handgun, I've never had a .357 rifle.
I've hunted Squirrles, muskrats, various pest squirrles, & I think it'd work to animals about the size of a skunk.

There are non-pest squirrels?

Grey Squirrels are very good eating. They'd still be pests in a garden though.

I ate my share of squirrels as a teenager.

I might use my H001 and get a few this season.

I got my first wadcutters in the mail yesterday. They are destined for my Model 10. I tried loading a handful of loaded .38s in my BB steel. It didn't like them. Just out of curiosity, I made up two dummy rounds using .357 cases. To my surprise, they loaded. Not sure they will feed consistently. I may try a few to see how they work. There is some data for 148 grain lead wadcutters. It is very close to the .38 data.

interesting info .... thanks for posting it