The Henry Repeating Rifle

The Volcanic Arms company made a lever action rifle and a lever action pistol, both called the Volcanic.  Both were based on a cartridge system, which promised to displace muzzle loading loads of power and bullet.   The company was losing money hand over fist, because the cartridge design was weak and failed too often.  The rifle was also underpowered, and just was not reliable enough. 

The assets of Volcanic were sold to its largest shareholder, Oliver H. Winchester, who had invested large sums of his personal money into the company.   Winchester renamed the company the New Haven Arms Co., and later to the Winchester Repeating Arms Co.  Hired by Winchester to make a reliable repeating rifle, gun designer B. Tyler Henry worked to improve the cartridge, and to make a rifle to use it.  He came up with a large caliber lever action rifle and a  .44 cal rimfire cartridge.  He got a patent on his design in 1860, and the Henry rifle was in production before the U.S. Civil War started. 

The Army evaluated the Henry rifle, as it was called, and bought a few of them.  However they did not buy significant numbers of the Henry.   Army brass thought the soldiers would waste a lot of ammunition by the rapid fire of the rifle, and units equiped with Henry's would be hard to keep supplied with ammunition.  Since the days of the Kentucky Rifle, the Army has favored accurate single shot fire over massive firepower, often citing the wastefulness of massive firepower, and expense of all that ammunition.  Although rejected by the Army, it was an instant success by the soldiers who used the rifle.  Some Union outfits supplied themselves with Henry rifles, either on their own or by contributions from their communities. 

A Southern general remarked that the Henry was a rifle that the Northerners could load on Sunday and fire it all week. 

The Henry rifle would get hot during firing, and did not have a wooden hand grip under the hot barrel.  It was a bit slow to load, a magazine tube being loaded from the muzzle end.  But once loaded, it easily outclassed other rifles of its day. It was only made through 1866, when improved models of Winchester repeating rifles replaced the original design.

The Henry rifle and its descendents, the Winchesters, are cited as one of the three inventions that allowed the settling of the American West, along with Gliddens barbed wire fence, and Halliday's windmill.

Other rifle articles in the archives include:
           The M1-Garrand
          The British Furgeson Breach Loader
          The 1903 Springfield
          The Krag Jorgenson
          The First Colt Revolver
          The Walker Colt
           1911 Colt 45
          The Collier Flintlock Revolver

Click on the Firearms Category to view all the firearms articles.

Comments

[ApoC]

Good news for oldschool lever action lovers, Henry Repeating Arms now sells a lever action .44 magnum/special (and just recently available in .357/.38 special) with some spectacular features you simply wont find anywhere else in the same lever action produced within the last century:

-SOLID BRASS Reciever (hell yes)
-solid brass buttplate and barrel band
-20" octagonal barrel
-super quality american walnut stocks

accuracy reputed the best off the shelf .44 mag lever action on the market, perfect balance, with the smoothest action you will ever, lever. on top of all that, its side ejecting, and it speed loads through the under-front of the tube mag, far quicker to reload than the side door. 10 rounds of ass kicking ready to go!

gettin mine in a week or two :D

ps. www.henryrepeating.com

[g-dude]

The Henry Rifle Company posted above, seems to be a newly created attempt to profit off the Henry name and appears to offer low-end lever action designs based somewhat on the Winchester.

For good quality and faithful replicas of the original Henry 1860 rifles, see companies such as Uberti or Navy Arms Company.

Great article btw

[Louie Orduna]

The modern Henry Rifle line has shown itself upon my examination to be the finest quality craftsmenship available at any price anywhere. America has had some excellent quality arms. The workmenship of Smith & Wesson, Wincheater, Colt & Ruger speak for themselves. The Henry Rifles that are made today in New York City have carefully followed that proud tradition of incredible workmanship ...Louie Orduna

[Web]

It’s great that more people are focusing on making better environmental choices. Plus technology is making it more economical now, and that’s what people really notice. Wind energy, solar power, hybrids and zap EV’s, our choices are good. There are now electric cars being sold everyday, you just plug it into a regular power outlet. When people test drive them they say it’s far more fun to drive an EV.