HUNTIN-N-SHOOTIN: Henry’s Updates .30-30 and .45-70

The two updated guns. Check below for the originals. At first glance, they’re almost identical.

Read more at Henry: https://www.henryrifles.com/henry-rifles/
The Henry Repeating Arms Company has listened to customer suggestions, complaints and issues to address a few problem areas on a couple of their rifles. I reviewed the two rifles in question last year. That complete first review is below should you want to see what my originals thoughts where on the guns.

The .45-70 is easy to identify from the front end.

The .30-30 is a bit more modest.

Large Caliber Rifles

These rifles are part of the collection of guns that Henry calls Large Caliber Rifles. The original Henry’s (the 19th century ones) and the first offerings from the new Henry Repeating Arms Company were all in rimfire or pistol calibers. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that Henry came out with rifles chambered in more traditional rifle calibers. They chose two of the most classic and capable American rifle cartridges–.30-30 and .45-70.
Henry sent us one of each of these rifles in the blued steel frame version. They also offer these in brass and color case hardened. The guns sent for this review are identical to the ones sent before save for the changes listed below.

The Updates and Issues

First, some users experienced the original ghost ring sights running out of elevation adjustment before being zeroed. I did not experience this particular issue, but I did not like the huge rear rings on these guns. I like peep style sights and have them on some of my personal long guns, but these were just way too big for shooting tight groups, especially with how wide the front blade was. See below for examples of how big these were and what were able to wring out of them at the range. Now, shooting tight groups on paper is not exactly what these rifles were made to do. These are guns to be used on the field and would be at home behind the seat of your truck. They also make great whitetail and big game hunting rifles. The ghost rings do make for fast target acquisition and are about as good as it gets for quick throw-it-on-your-shoulder-and-pull-the-trigger type work. But it’s not too often I find myself needing to shoot like that in the field.

The new rear sight.

The original .45-70 rear sight.

Henry completely redid the sights on these. The ghost rings are gone and so is the wide front sight. Now we have the classic, and traditional, semi-buckhorn sights and a brass bead style front. I worked both guns out at 50 and 100 yards with much more acceptable results. One string from the .30-30 was well under an inch at 50 yards. Does the updated rifle get on target as fast as the older version? No, but its not that much slower and I have a lot more confidence I could actually hit the target with the new version.

The new front sight. Taller, and with a nice brass bead.

The front blade on the older version.

The second issue that Henry addressed was one I did not experience on the original rifles. According to Henry, the .45-70 had a tendency for the magazine tube to expand when shooting hotter loads which would cause the magazine locking mechanism to fail. The original design had a barrel band that went around the tube to hold it in place. This band also held the front sight. To fix this issue, Henry scrapped the barrel band and instead made a beefier mag tube and attached it to the barrel with a dovetail joint. This also necessitated the use of the new front sight. The .30-30 version did not have any of these issues reported but Henry went ahead and made the changes to this rifle as well.

Note how the new sight and magazine tube connect with dovetails.

The front sight on the earlier version was built into a barrel band.

The 3rd and final issue was one that I did have happen to me on the original, but I thought it was a fluke. Henry had numerous reports of levers popping open with a loaded chamber. I recall this happening to me at the range when doing some walking/shoulder firing. I remember thinking that I must have either not closed it all the way, and since it only happened the one time. Either way–if it was my fault or Henry’s, they have corrected the issue was a slight redesign of the action.

Thoughts

I think the changes to these rifles and how Henry has handled them speak volumes about this company. They listened to customer issues and addressed them with changes to their designs. Not only that, if you have one of the older rifles and have had the above issues Henry will make the updated changes to your rifle at no cost. That is some good customer service right there folks. If you are looking for a new lever gun Henry should be at the top of your list.

The .45-70 from 50 yards.

The .30-30 from 50 yards.

At 100, the shots open up a bit.

the .45-70 from 100.

Testing out accuracy with iron sights at 100 yards tests your skills more than the gun’s abilities.

But the new sight system works very well and we found it easier to use than the ghost rings, even though we didn’t have too much difficulty with those, either.