A Henry Contender?

[tractortad]

Looking at our two single-shot Henrys in 44Mag and 45-70, it sure looks like you could swap the barrels - which means that if Henry sold single-shot barrels you could probably buy one rifle and fit a different caliber barrel depending on your needs, like a Thompson/Center Contender....

[JEBar]

it would be interesting to know if the receivers and foregrips are identical .... I tend to believe that Henry would prefer to sell 2 complete rifles, rather separate barrels

[North Country Gal]

Sorry, but I very much doubt you'll get away with interchanging barrels on a Henry single shot, like you can on a Contender. There's actually a lot R&D that went into the Contender design to get that user interchangeable barrel feature. It was built into the design from the get go. It was no accident. Other makers of break open single shots, when they do offer extra barrels, require the user to send the gun back to have the extra barrels fit or you order your barrels with the frame at the time of purchase and they are fitted by the factory before delivery.

With the TC, the locking bolt on the barrel and lock system in the frame were designed with enough tolerance to handle a wide variety of different barrels. Even so, in the early days of the Contender, TC was plagued with barrel lockup problems with customers having to send back their frame with a new extra barrel to TC in order to get their new barrel to open when installed on their original frame. Over the years, TC re-designed the locking bolt on the barrel, several times, to minimize this issue and also did some mods on the frame action to make it easier to open barrels. Even so, I still get a Contender barrel/frame matchup where I have to do a little work to get the fit right. Usually means switching to another style of locking bolt on the barrel or some filing on the old locking bolt for a better fit to that particular frame.

Since Henry does not even offer extra barrels for their single shot, they are not going to support any attempt by a customer to change a barrel, not just for the extra labor to fit barrels for customers, but also because of keeping records for the Feds. Because of its interchangeable barrel option and the fact that a Contender can so easily be switched from a pistol to a rifle, it is classified by the Feds under a different category than a conventional rifle or pistol.

Anyway, nice idea, but if you want to buy a gun with that offers interchangeable barrels that you can fit on your own, you'll have to go TC.

[tractortad]

Well, NCG's post got me real curious about this, so I just tried swapping the barrels(with original walnut forearms still attached) on our 44Mag and 45-70 single shots. They fit like a glove and functioned/dry fried like normal - in fact, I can't tell any difference between the two other than one has 44Mag printed on its side and the other one has 45-70.....

[JEBar]

just curious .... do you plan to test fire one or both with the barrels switched ..

[tractortad]

just curious .... do you plan to test fire one or both with the barrels switched ..

Good question - that would really be the final answer, wouldn't it? I think I'll mull it over a little bit...

[North Country Gal]

Interesting to hear that the barrels swapped, TD. You may be on to something, after all. I commend you on initiative. More testing needed, of course.

One thing you might want to do is to contact Henry and get their take on this. Ultimately, this will be the determining factor.

[PT7]

Yes, Tractortad, without a doubt. The final answer to your experiment would be most interesting.
Pretty certain I already know what Henry would say...

PT7

[Mistered]

Interesting to hear that the barrels swapped, TD.

I am surprised as well. I am aware of the early TC Contender issues NCG mentioned and when NEF (Handi-Rifle) were on their own (before selling out to Remington) you would have to send your receiver in to have an additional barrel fitted by the factory.
I have been looking for just a .357 barrel in the hopes I can fit it to my receiver as a project but they are very hard to find.

[tractortad]

It gets a little more interesting. I just picked up another Henry Single in 357Mag and its barrel/forearm assmbly fits into the 45-70 and 44Mag receivers. In fact, all three are interchangeable with each other. It looks like the only difference in all three rifles is the diameter of their bores. The barrels all have the exact same length and outer dimensions...

[Mags]

.
In a way not surprising. Good way on Henry's part to minimize tooling costs. Keeping things common except for the bore. What seems odd though is lack of 'keying' studs to prevent interchangeability like this.

It gets a little more interesting. I just picked up another Henry Single in 357Mag and its barrel/forearm assmbly fits into the 45-70 and 44Mag receivers. In fact, all three are interchangeable with each other. It looks like the only difference in all three rifles is the diameter of their bores. The barrels all have the exact same length and outer dimensions...

[Mistered]

What seems odd though is lack of 'keying' studs to prevent interchangeability like this.

Maybe Henry is eventually going to offer barrels only to facilitate interchangeability.
From a customer standpoint it would add to the appeal by offering additional barrels to allow multiple calibers at a lower cost. I would think
More people would buy additional barrels rather
Than multiple guns to obtain multiple calibers.

[tractortad]

Took NCG's advice on this and sent an email to Henry Tech Dept asking about changing single shot barrel assemblies and also if it was possible to buy a single barrel for a single-shot rifle. Got the following back:

"Thank you for your interest. I'm sorry, the platform was not designed for bbl interchange and spare bbls are not being offered as separate accessories"

Kind of what I expected - but it would not surprise me in the least if they were to offer "spare bbls" for single shots sometime in the future - it looks like the platform is already capable of changing barrels with different calibers. The parts diagram in the owners manual lists the same parts for all calibers of single shot rifles (single shot shotguns have a different firing pin) - and I doubt there is any custom hand fitting in the manufacturing process for these rifles. Time will tell....