Henry Rifle Forums

last year bought a H010 45-70. after about 40rds the #2 round would slide in over top of the carrier.when you remove the load tube it would stay in gun,so when the lever was opened the action would lock open. gives you a bad feeling walking out to truck with the action locked open in bear country in the dark. realized that if you just cycle all rounds through with the lever it worked ok. good enough to shoot a deer and a bear last fall. gun is sent away for repair. will let you know how things go.

just curious, what type of ammo were you using ?

I had a sort of similar issue with a Marlin 45-70, in that, if you didn't work the action full throttle, it would feed another round before the first one cleared the action, and it would be "stuck" until I removed the lever, bolt, and cleared the rounds. It wouldn't happen if I ran the action briskly, but, sometimes when your hands are cold, or you're unloading the rifle with snow on the ground (not wanting to fish around for a lost cartridge), stuff happens. That had a lot to do with that rifle going down the road. And why I recently bought a Henry 30-30 to refill that niche .

Federal mostly. when you pull the lever to the fully closed position you could see the carrier drop just enough to let the round slide back over it.

OMP wrote:Federal mostly. when you pull the lever to the fully closed position you could see the carrier drop just enough to let the round slide back over it.

interesting .... the only issue I've ever had, of any kind, with ours has been a very hard trigger pull .... right now it is in the hands of a gunsmith I trust for him to take care of that issue .... I'm really looking forward to hearing what Henry does to take care of yours

I am on my 3rd 45-70 H010B.

#1: Wouldn't lock into battery. I fired three rounds perfectly. The fourth was a fail to fire. Waited a minute, cycled it out and it had a very small primer strike. Chambered the next round and realized the lever would not fully seat. Again, fail to fire. So, I squeezed hard on the lever (bowing it) and it fired. Cycled thru an entire tube and had one that actually locked into battery position and fire. Repeated this loading and cycling process a few more times until I decided to send the rifle back. I had a shippimg label the next day and a new rifle 2.5 weeks later.

#2: Opened the box and inspected the rifle. Beatiful as one would expect, except when I got to cleaning the rifle. I noticed that the last inch or more of the rifling appeared to be reamed out. You could see where they were, but the lands were/are nearly gone. Looking straight down from the crown, this new rifle appears to be a smooth bore except you can see the swirl marks from what looks like a rotary tool that had been stuck straight down the barrel. I didn't even bother shooting the rifle. This was reported to Henry around the 18th of last month. As of writing this I am still awaiting a shipping label.

I was told that there is a glitch with getting warranty labels and that they would take care of it as soon as possible. Just short of a month (so far) seems extreme. This will make my 3rd Henry rifle. My other three have performed flawlessly but are no less than 5 years old. I'm wondering, like some on here, what has changed at Henry. I'm having a hard time reconciling spending money for back to back new rifles with major flaws, and now having to wait a month for a warranty work shipping label knowing that it will be at least two more weeks before I get a new rifle after I send this one in. Add to that, this rifle will be used in an area where there are bear, big cats, and wild dogs and now I'm questioning reliability.

I feel like I'm a pretty patient guy, and I've wanted a 45-70 for years, but I'm seriously thinking of cutting my losses here. On the plus side, at least I haven't bought my 45-70 reloading supplies yet.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm wondering if my story is a fluke or if others have had similar issues.

jbloader wrote: Sorry for the rant, but I'm wondering if my story is a fluke or if others have had similar issues.

Call them today and repeat what you just wrote in your post to CS. Your request seems to have fallen into a crack. You should get the shipping label in an email today.

Based on your, and a few other reports, it sounds like they're missing something in internal inspections of parts before/during assembly, and finally inspection before leaving the floor. I think a lot of us believe Henry over-extended its production capability with all their new offerings. I'd like to think these occurrences are rare, this is the place to hear about them, but they're something Henry has to get a handle on. Even their Customer Service seems to be stretched.

CT_Shooter wrote: Call them today and repeat what you just wrote in your post to CS. Your request seems to have fallen into a crack. You should get the shipping label in an email today.

Thank you for the advice. I did call them and they sent a shipping label already. It is different than the ups label I got on my first return so I am going to go over all of my messages to make sure I didn't miss it.

And like always, Henry customer support was polite and eager to help.

Fingers crossed I get a good'un and can focus on shooting.

I feel for you. I had exactly the same problem with the shipping label until I call them and I had it the next day. Something is not right in Henry Land.

The Wiz wrote:I feel for you. I had exactly the same problem with the shipping label until I call them and I had it the next day. Something is not right in Henry Land.

It is interesting. Basically, I reported the second rifle as bad and passed on the required information hoping that I would get a new label before I left on a two week business trip. The plan was to get back home and have the new rifle soon after, but I didn't receive it before leaving and more or less "forgot" about it. It really didn't matter as, being away from home, I couldn't ship it anyway and I was busy enough that it fell to the back burner.

So, when I came home and realized I'd never received a label I reached out to my Henry rep and was told that I had provided everything needed. There was a glitch in the warranty process and I should receive a shipping label soon. It took another week, another email, a call, and (possibly) me posting on here to get it worked out.

In a way I feel bad because these are my first posts on this forum. I have 4 Henry rifles including my soon to be replaced 45-70 and I have had exceptional performance and reliability from 3 of them. I'm not going to say that "something is not right" at Henry, but I can say that if this was my first experience with Henry (or any other gun manufacturer) it would be my last.

I understand mistakes happen, but my second rifle was packaged without rifling in the last inch, or more, of the barrel. Someone knew that I was getting a replacement rifle and selected that one. It was test fired. I really don't understand how someone could inspect and pass that rifle.

Still, I just hope that mine was a Shakespearean tragedy of mistakes. Based on my big mouth, Henry's reputation now impacts my own. I've talked them up for a lot of years and now get asked everyday at work, "So, how's that 45-70 shoot?"

jbloader wrote:

The Wiz wrote:...Henry's reputation now impacts my own. I've talked them up for a lot of years and now get asked everyday at work, "So, how's that 45-70 shoot?"

I'm going to predict that you will be able to talk them up again without hesitation. Stuff happens. Henry promises satisfaction. Their quality and reputation is now much more widely known than ever before and their product line has recently been expanded. So, they've got new employees, new customers, new software, and other issues (including suppliers) to address. What should be encouraging to us all is that their commitment to customer satisfaction hasn't changed.

Not for nothing, but L.L. Bean (a longtime vendor of a highly rated catalog of products, many of which I have bought and owned for decades) recently changed it's warranty from forever to one year.

It may be an occasional hassle to experience a problem with a Henry, but it still will be fixed or replaced until you're satisfied.

Sorry to hear about your problems. My h010B has been flawless. But it is one of the 1st 1,000 made. Be patient. It is an amazing gun once you get it working right.

Don't forget to check your spam folder. I find that often stuff that comes in from companies falls in there.

My personal opinion is that Henry is dealing with some growing pains. In his web chats Anthony has mentioned that they have had to buy some new tooling and machines to keep up with demand. That may be part of the problem with barrels lately. New processes always take a little time to get the bugs out. I'm confident they will get things sorted out. This isn't a mega corp hell bent on profits. It's a family company with a lot of pride in their products. I'm sure they are quite embarrassed at the problems of late!

I'm at work and using my phone so I'll be brief. The "new" rifle arrived two days ago and appears to be re-barreled. I'll be taking it down for inspection tonight, but won't be able to shoot it until weekend after next. Keeping my fingers crossed that this one gets slinged and earns a permanent spot in the safe.

Henry customer service was exemplary as usual but I do hope I don't have to talk to them anytime soon. : )

OMP wrote:gun is sent away for repair. will let you know how things go.

OMP, any word on your rifle?

the Canadian warrenty repair shop called me when he was checking my 45-70. he said he couldnt find any thing wrong. he put me on speaker phone and loaded the rifle as i talked with him. he had no sticking issues. he did this twice. He was using winchester ammo and i was using federal. We came to the conclusion it is a ammo problem. He wanted to make sure I was satisfied before hanging up the phone. He owns Henry rifles himself and is a top notch guy. Got my rifle back and it sticks when I load it with Federal . With 7 boxes of federal and the price of ammo, i will live with it. I still love my 45-70 and was very happy with the customer service