I'm thinking about a Henry in 327 Fed Mag. I'm trying to decide between the brass and steel. I like the octagon barrel but I have one in 357 and it is ridiculously heavy. Anyone know if the 327 is the same outside dimension? I wish they would slim the brass model down, lighten the barrels a bit, go to a brass rifle style butt plate and use a forend cap instead of the barrel band. The new color case versions have an oct. barrel but they don't make it in 327. The color case looks like crap. Too bad they couldn't combine the best features from all 3 models. So basically I'd like to know if the brass 327 is even more barrel heavy than the 357. I'm in a bit of a remote area and will have to order one in, so can't look at them before hand.
Henry Big Boy
- Thread starter smokinbarrel
- Start date
I'm reading that a lot of them chambered in 327 have cycling problems. Apparently all big boys use the same receiver, which is really sized for the 45 Colt...so the 327 is rattling around in it like a marble in a drain pipe. Some say it has to be held level to feed and that shells can even fall back into the mechanism. Watched Hickock's video and although he mostly overlooks the problem, you can see it. Sort of like a 410 shotgun built on a 10ga. action. Still interested in others experience with them. Too bad Marlin went to crap...be nice if somebody would build a light graceful lever actually scaled to the 32H&R or 327Mag. The Big Boy is about as graceful as a bulldozer.
I've had a few of their rimfire levers apart, they look rather chinsy inside, white metal and pinned together. I think if you could start with a Win 94/22 it would be more feasible, but sadly those have become history. I like your idea though, it would be a slender svelte light fast handling lever. High labour costs killed production of a lot of those fine guns, but with the advanced CNC machinery of today and state of the art materials, castings etc, I don't know why some manufacturer in Turkey couldn't revive that design and build at a profit..but it's got a lot to do with market demand too. This reminds me of the old convertible Marlins, just swap the firing pin 32 RF or 32CF.
