Henry centerfire quality survey

[Slugnut]

I have 3 Henrys (22, 41mag and 30/30) all steel. On a scale of 1-10, I give Henry an 8+. Pretty good fit to finish, no major mechanical issues and no send backs. The accuracy with the 41mag. and 30/30 is excellent.

[Mags]

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My .30-30 is gen2. It is supposed to already have the lever popping issue found in gen1 fixed. I have other brand tube fed rifles and none of them get hung up on case rims.

Brass .30-30 gen2 built August 2017. Inner mag tube hangs up on case rims. Pressing causes lever to pop open.

I’d say the issue of the tube hanging up on cases is likely to be a potential problem for any tube fed rimmed case rifle. I wouldn’t call that a “Henry flaw”. The lever popping open though, should not be happening. Someone posted on page one (Esquared maybe?) that Henry sent him a new style lever that solved his same problem. You should get them to send you one. They are easy to swap out.

[Redthies]

I wondered about that. My .357 can be a bit sticky getting past the case rims once in a while, but I just give it a shake and try again. Usually goes pretty easy. Have you contacted Henry? They may have updated a part or two since your rifle was built.

[Mags]

A couple of more recent quality excursions that represent repeat occurrences seen in other older posts.
http://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=5581
http://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5587

I seriously doubt that Henry has a quality improvement process loop where issues found in outgoing inspection and later in repair and by customers get fed back to engineering and manufacturing processes. Henry technical customer support is fabulous, but what they know and have learned doing repairs apparently isn't getting back upstream.

I have a paper somewhere written by someone else that outlines the cost of quality to where the excursion is found. I'll have to see if I can find it. Some points I remember:
o Quality escapes can cost a company as much 40% of sales revenue.
o Quality escape containment and mitigation within a company cost can be as low as 1%.
o Usually when a company doesn't do a good job of tracking quality, there is a lack of management knowledge and support for quality control processes, including wasted time/cost of handling customer found excursions, poor tracking (lack of how to do it) and basic cost impact to their sales revenue.
o Some treat backend quality as a necessary evil cost of doing business, rather than feedback issues found to improve development and manufacturing processes.

[PT7]

Redthies,

Yes, "something else" would have been preferable.

You may not believe it, but there was nothing else to sell. Due to various circumstances beyond our control, our financial situation was tight. I won't go into details, but a word picture will suffice. In the 2008-09 financial slippery slope, right alongside many other folk, we got caught in the boat with holes riding the rapids over the falls. My choices were, in a sense, easy to make. The medical needs for my wife were paramount to address. The Henry rifles and my 12-ga shotgun were really the only fluid/sellable items I had. Thankfully, selling them took care of those medical needs at that time.

Please, don't take above info as a tale of woe; it is not a tale of woe. Just what we had to walk through over the last 6 years of Joyce's life, and we always had what we needed to handle and live with those challenges. Without a doubt, I would have sold all my firearms & ammo, if needed in order to care for her.

Appreciated your comments....thanks!
PT7

PT7: It seems like someone is trying to tell you to sell something different if you need extra cash!? I usually have a third vehicle around that I buy for cheap and fix to enjoy. I usually pick something “fun” and easy to sell like a Jeep or the convertible 4Runner I have now. I can (and do) sell them if things get lean. My firearms would be low down the list of things I’d sell, and my Henrys would probably only be sold after my Rugers, Mossberg and Marlin were gone. The M1 Carbine and Winchester would be the last to go as they aren’t easily replaceable.

[ESquared]

Hello, fellow Henry owners. I was wondering if you all could help me out with a little quality survey regarding your Henry centerfire rifles. I am trying to gather data for a discussion ...

Brian,
As an old data-dog/consumer research guy, I can appreciate what you're trying to do, but the "survey" results you'll get here will be anecdotal at best and have no statistical value whatsoever.

"Owner forums" in general are in a fairly narrow subset of the social media world in general, as the numbers here would suggest. Facebook "groups" have much more reach, and, even then, some folks are not interested in asking permission to join a FB group.

There have been a number of threads on this board about how small our membership is relative to the number of rifles that Henry sells every year, and it's been eye-opening for me to come to realize that the number of active REGULAR participants here is an even smaller number still. Another interesting statistic is the age demographics of this group; let's just say we're far more "seasoned" than most social media online gatherings.

I guess the point is, you're not going to get a statistically valid, random sampling of Henry owners from the broad marketplace (either in the US or worldwide), you're going to end up with a handful of responses from a small sliver of very tiny universe of Henry enthusiasts (not random owners, but, for the most part, true brand advocates/fans), so the results of this survey are only going to get you so far before someone blows them up.

[Yornoc3]

ESquared makes a really good point, about everything we read here, really. We're a pretty small group, which is particularly interested in Henry rifles. We're more likely to report on things, make observations, and try to help resolve issues than any representative sample of Henry rifle purchasers would. But we'd try to convert 'em .

[Redthies]

Redthies,

Yes, "something else" would have been preferable. Without a doubt, I would have sold all my firearms & ammo, if needed in order to care for her.

That’s the way it goes sometimes. I also would sell anything and everything to help my wife! At least here in the semi-frozen north, our medical expenses are very very low. I feel bad for folks who’s HMO or whatever is putting them in a bad spot.

[deano5150]

One BBB 357 with no issues after 500 rounds.

[flat_topp]

I have one BBS in 357 magnum that I bought about one year ago. I've had no reason to send it to Henry for repairs. Approximately 300 rounds fired so far.

[johnsgwh]

1 big boy steel 45-70
1 big boy steel .44 mag.

Never had an issu with either one of them

[Cofisher]

Hey Brian, any results you would be willing to share yet?

[GunnyGene]

1 BBS Carbine, .41 mag., recently purchased and less than 50 rds thru it. One deer harvested a couple weeks ago @ about 80yds. No quality, functional, or cosmetic issues; or accuracy issues attributable to the rifle thus far.

[Steve51]

1 .357 BBS - no problems
1 .44 BB Brass Octagon Barrel - no problems
1 .45-70 BBS (one of the first 4000 made) The mag tube and barrel were re-designed and mine was sent in for the upgrade - no problems since.

[Mistered]

Another interesting statistic is the age demographics of this group; let's just say we're far more "seasoned" than most social media online gatherings.

Another statistic of this group is the number of first time gun owners who have chosen a Henry.
Along with this is the number of people who are sending their rifles back for what I consider to be minor problems that can easily be resolved through minor adjustment or fitting of parts or nothing more than a good cleaning and polishing of moving surfaces.
There are no doubt some issues that are more serious and do require factory attention but those are considerably less than the latter.
My point to this is IF the number of rifles sent back to the factory (by this relatively small group) was used in a quality survey it could dramatically affect the outcome and show the Henry to be a low quality product.
To obtain accurate numbers one would have to somehow directly contact a large number of Henry owners with some very specific survey questions - one being say, 'Have you, or will you be sending your Henry back for factory service?'
I suspect if this were done the numbers would show considerably fewer sending them back than what the numbers of 'this group' might show.
FWIW however I have seen recently (on a couple other forums I follow) a few posts about Henry quality issues and some similar to those reported on this forum. Interestingly these 'complaints' seem to be more less recent with some mentioning their '2017 built Henry'.
It's possible there was a bad run of some rifles and the problems are just being noticed now. If this is the case hopefully its a narrow margin and the problems will be acted upon and resolved.

[Billsch8]

I have four centerfire Henrys:
1-30-30 All Weather
1-44 mag All Weather
1 -357 BBB carbine
1-44 mag BBB carbine
I had to send the 357 BBB back to Henry for a new barrel. The original barrel did not have rifling all the way to the muzzle and it had severe machine "chatter" marks the last 3/8" before the muzzle. Interestingly enough it actually was pretty accurate, however it bugged me so I sent it in. Stuff happens and the new barrel is accurate. I'm a happy camper.

[PT7]

KCMO.jpg

Welcome, Bill, from the Show-Me-State!
You bring along with you a nice collection of Henrys. Pretty certain you like/enjoy each one in its unique way. But curious to learn if you like one look better over the other: the AW or bronze?

Yup, "stuff happens." Always good to hear that a Henry owner with rifle problems ends up to be a "happy camper."
Enjoy your time on the Forum.
PT7

[CT_Shooter]

I have four centerfire Henrys...I'm a happy camper.

Welcome to the forum from CT, Bill. Glad you joined us.

[ESquared]

Another interesting statistic is the age demographics of this group; let's just say we're far more "seasoned" than most social media online gatherings.

To obtain accurate numbers one would have to somehow directly contact a large number of Henry owners with some very specific survey questions - one being say, 'Have you, or will you be sending your Henry back for factory service?'

It's complicated (probably to the point of being impossible), very expensive and, in Henry's case, totally unnecessary to field such a study. From a research/survey standpoint, it's interesting that Henry doesn't capture any of its consumers' data via online registrations (the way that Sig does, for example), so they have no way to tap into a "random sampling" of its owner universe. It'd be fascinating to find out what the "average" Henry owner looks like.

So, what they're left with is the ability to analyze their own warranty repair data (which they'd better be doing) for trends in types of defect, model(s) involved, production run date(s), etc., which they can then back-trace to root cause(s), whether it's a matter of "operator error" at the plant, something wandering out of spec or lagging inspection practices.

There's no question that factory returns are expensive in the short run, given the way Henry pays for two-day shipping (not to mention the occasional SWAG bag), but you have to give Imperato credit for knowing that quality issues are bad for business in the long run. Such is the price for the kind of growth that Henry has experienced.

The spike in quality issues that many of us are either experiencing or hearing about is probably real ("where there's smoke, there's fire"), so the real question is, does it turn out to be a blip or a trend?

[North Country Gal]

[/quote] ... The spike in quality issues that many of us are either experiencing or hearing about is probably real ("where there's smoke, there's fire"), so the real question is, does it turn out to be a blip or a trend?[/quote]

I've worked in corporate America and have been privy to business decisions made there. I can promise you, it will only be a blip if it affects the quarterly bottom line. If customers are willing to forgive lack of QC in exchange for great customer service and sales are not affected, lack of QC is what customers will continue to get because there is no incentive for the brand to change. It's a well-proven business model used in today's business world. This isn't rocket science.

This is also a function of Henry's position in the gun market as a brand with great value. Henry doesn't have a reputation for high-grade guns to protect the way, say, Browning does. It's a matter of customer expectations. Customers who pay big prices for gun brands like Browning have expectations for QC to match. A lapse in QC on Browning's part will be much more likely to affect sales because of the higher prices Browning charges. Customers who shop for more mainline brands of guns like Henry and Ruger are more willing to accept lapses in QC to get those more affordable prices. In short, Henry could invest more in QC and inspect and test fire each and every gun they produce to the point of almost never shipping out a defective gun, but then you wouldn't be paying Henry prices, anymore. Again, not rocket science.

Comparing my experience with other mainline and affordable brands with what I have been hearing about Henry issues, is that Henry QC is typical for the prices they charge and, in fact, it's probably better than average. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't complain when you get a defective gun. In fact, you should complain (politely, of course). Customer feedback is always important to any company.