Henry Big Boy .44 Rem Mag Rifle Flat Butt Plate - Surprisingly Sore Shoulder

thegazelle

thegazelle

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It is weird and I wasn't expecting this in the least...the last time my shoulder was this sore was in 2006 when a buddy had me shoot 3 1/2" turkey loads in his BPS.

For almost 2 decades, been shooting all manner of firearms including 12ga slugs without much issue with sore shoulder.

I recently got a Henry Big Boy in .44 Rem Mag. This is the brass receiver edition which has NO BUTTPAD / NO RECOIL PAD - just a brass plate.

Loads I was using was Magtech .44 Rem Mag 240gr JSP factory loads.

I shot 50 rounds yesterday, a box full. After shooting that box, I spent the rest of the afternoon shooting .22s out of my Cooey and couldn't feel much out of my shoulder. By the evening my shoulder was noticeably sore. By today, it was extremely sore.

It did not feel that bad while shooting it. I shouldered it the same way I have shouldered all other rifles. Never been an issue with a next-day sore shoulder until today. It is uncomfortable moving my arm and even doing things like lifting a dinner plate with some food.

My range buddy thinks it is my old age creeping up, coupled with my small frame (I am short and light - 5' 6", 127lbs). Wimpiness or not, shoulder is very tender.

I am able to go through 75 12 ga slugs consecutively with no problem out of my pump, have also shot 50 rounds of 308 consecutively out of my bolt action with no problem.

From all recoil energy charts that I see, the recoil shouldn't be that bad at all.

The only thing to which I can attribute this is that the Henry had no recoil / butt pad on it whatsoever.

Can the lack of a buttpad have this much of an impact?
 
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looked up rifle weight Carbine 7.76 lb

I think its a combination of brass butt plate/ light weight/ shooting 50 rounds and getting older

44 mag is very close to 30-30 would your shoulder be sore if you shot 50, 30-30 mine would be

My buddy bugs me for shooting light loads in the 35 Whelen, .......... Max loads are for the younger shooters

I go to the club to have fun
 
I have a Marlin 1893 carbine with a crescent butt plate. Its lighter than my 336 RC with the same barrel length. It has some decent recoil due to the crescent being convex which reduces the surface area in contact with the shoulder. Coupled with the light weight it makes for noticeably more recoil than the 336. I can see why flat shotgun buttplates replaced the beautifully brutal crescent buttplates in the early 1900s. Its funny that this lowly .30-30 punches harder than the M1917 .30-06 despite burning 20+ less grains of powder and around 1000 fps slower.
 
Went to the range to-day with my Sharps in .45-70 steel butt plate.Fired 20 something rounds of .405 grained cam-pros and trap door pressures and I'm all done!:cheers:
 
You should feel my Henry 010 all-steel carbine in 45-70. After about 4 or 5 rounds of factory Hornady 325 FTX at 2050 fps, the old shoulder is throwing up the white flag. :)
 
Not a .44Rem story, but 338 in a No1.
5 shots in 15 minutes and I was just short of spitting out fillings and thinking about concussion protocol.
I think you nailed it with the solid butt plate and of course a light rifle adds to it.
Factory pistol ammo is no slouch :)
There is something about the smell of pistol powder when out on the range ;)
Tight Groups,
Rob
 
It is likely that this is just the implement that announced your shoulder is deteriorated... happens to all of us, Ole' Chap.

I have a Henry Brass .44, and a B78 .45/70 with steel Crescent plate and a .45/110 with a steel crescent plate... I don't think the issue is the brass plate. That Henry plate has been sculpted pretty well, at least for me.
 
Thanks folks. I appreciate the insight and thoughts.

Due to it being my first .44, I didn't know what to expect. Almost all the Youtube videos I have seen of people shooting the Big Boy, they are almost always the models with the rubber butt pad.

I do realize that my sample size is pretty small, with using one kind of ammo. I do also realize that I could have run 44 Special out of that gun, BUT I am a cheapo and there was a sale on the Magtech 240gr Magnums that made it significantly cheaper than the rest of the stuff (the Winchester white box 240gr Magnums were almost double the price of the Magtech Magnums). But 44 Special doesn't seem to be as common out there in the stores, and even if it was, the prices I have seen from it would make me purchasing-adverse.

I could not imagine what this would be like shooting these in a revolver.

Thanks for the feedback. Logically, there is no way my shoulder should still be sore after only 50 rounds of this, at least based on my reasoning. Was trying to put my finger on what it could be.

All that said, love the Henry. Just a lovely, well made, well crafted firearm. That in itself makes me want to shoot it again (not to mention I bought an inordinate amount of the .44 Magtech, so have to get through it somehow).
 
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AlbertaJohn said:
My Rossi R92 at 6.4 lbs and chambered in 454 Casull recoils pretty stout too.

But it has a rubber buttplate which helps.
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My Rossi Ranch Hand in 45 Colt with carbine buttstock wears a brass buttplate I made fer 'er. A shoulder digger fer sure with my heavy cast loads.
Wearing me PAST(Poosy Pad)shield takes the sting & distraction out of 50 rnd shooting sessions. ;)
 
Could be from racking the action. I know it seems weird but a new repetitive movement can reke havoc on an aging body. I grew up with pump guns and now I find they really hurt my left shoulder from sliding the action. Just like pulling out the old screw driver when the battery dies in the drill. My fire arm muscles just can't take the twisting and rotating. Last summer I build a fish tank stand and after 2x 3" screws with a screw driver I went and bought a second drill battery
 
brybenn said:
Could be from racking the action. I know it seems weird but a new repetitive movement can reke havoc on an aging body. I grew up with pump guns and now I find they really hurt my left shoulder from sliding the action. Just like pulling out the old screw driver when the battery dies in the drill. My fire arm muscles just can't take the twisting and rotating. Last summer I build a fish tank stand and after 2x 3" screws with a screw driver I went and bought a second drill battery
Click to expand...

This is very interesting. Aside from my new Big Boy, the only other time I have run a lever is my buddy's .22LR H001 Henry. I was talking with him yesterday and aside from light ribbing about me ordering a recoil shoulder pad, he mentioned one other thing - he was hypothesizing that with the lever being a new platform for me plus the fact that unlike my bolt action and shotguns, the lever stock was straight back, he wondered how much I was really able to pull it up against my shoulder.

For my regular rifles and shotguns there is that curved part of the stock behind the trigger guard which naturally one would grip with their palm and pull back towards you - he suggests between operating the lever and the fact that there was really nothing to naturally grip and pull the stock towards me, perhaps the shouldering was not as tight as it could be. He may be right, but your suggestion makes sense as well with the repetitive new motion.

Sounds like aging is a factor here as well. Thanks everyone for your suggestions and input.
 
Not only foot lbs of energy but the velocity of the recoil. There's a app for that. The 44 is on par with a 3030 and the steel plate on them get me too.
In my shooting box I have a 6x6, 3/8 piece of bed role foam with swade leather glued on to it. Slip it under my shirt, never know it's there.
 
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