Ooooh Hello! I'm a Henry rimfire!... No, wait... Not that kind of impression. 
So I recently decided that I “needed” a lever action .22lr. I already have a dozen or so .22lr rifles, but none of them are lever action. I went down to a local shop, handled a few and settled on a Henry H001. I figured I’d post my initial impressions here just to provide a little first hand info to anyone looking at getting one. Please excuse my poor photography, I don’t have nearly enough lighting in my apartment.
I’ve heard good things about the Henrys but had no hands on experience with one. I just wanted something with a lever to plink some gophers and pop cans that could bounce around my truck, rest on random things etc, in the back forty a bit without having to stress about it getting beat up. A CZ 513 fills this roll currently, but the wood is so nice that I feel guilty every time I bump the stock on something. For this reason, I decided against the more expensive golden boy. I also handled the H100T which is the octagon barreled version. The octagon barrel sure looks cooler, like a ’94 Winchester, but I felt like the extra pound really put the balance out, so I opted for the standard H001.
PRICE: $369
THE GOOD: 5.25 lbs, 14” LOP, holds 15 in the tube. Very smooth action right out of the box and got even better after a hundred or so rounds. No misfeeds, ejects nicely. Very hard strikes, enough to actually crush the rims a good bit. The question is, will it stay smooth or will it get sloppy in time. Trigger feels surprisingly nice and is serrated for grip… Instead of creeping back and breaking it requires the hardest pull immediately so you can’t feel any pretravel when firing. The wood finish and bluing on the barrel/bolt/lever are decent. Receiver is grooved for a scope. Groups nicely at 25 yards, but I haven’t benched it yet.
THE BAD: The fit and finish leaves something to be desired. The painted receiver cover feels like it is just waiting to be scratched. I suspect that It will get scratched immediately and I will end up just taking the paint off an polishing it, or getting another cover. The barrel band was loose out of the box and doesn’t fit particularly well. It is also painted. The sights have a fairly wide rear notch and the front sight is hard to find quickly. A white dot on the front post should help tremendously. A plastic front band/sight… Looks bad, feels bad…. These are fairly minor complaints IMO.
OVERALL: A nice rifle. Looks good, feels good, shoots good. I am more than willing to overlook a few cosmetic details for the price.
A few pics.
Safety notch is very tactile and audible. There is enough distance between hammer down and safe to quickly tell by looking after you've seen it engage once.
Requires a large and a medium slotted screwdriver to get to this point. Punch required to disassemble the trigger group.
Close up of the wood. Not bad, but not as nice as the BL-22, 464, t-bolt or any of CZs models.
Scratched the receiver just taking the cover off for the first time. Of course this won’t be seen, but it demonstrates how weak this painted finish is.
Rear receiver cover screws sit out a bit on the bottom. Worse than it appears in the picture. Minor detail, but come on…
Plastic front sight band.
So I recently decided that I “needed” a lever action .22lr. I already have a dozen or so .22lr rifles, but none of them are lever action. I went down to a local shop, handled a few and settled on a Henry H001. I figured I’d post my initial impressions here just to provide a little first hand info to anyone looking at getting one. Please excuse my poor photography, I don’t have nearly enough lighting in my apartment.
I’ve heard good things about the Henrys but had no hands on experience with one. I just wanted something with a lever to plink some gophers and pop cans that could bounce around my truck, rest on random things etc, in the back forty a bit without having to stress about it getting beat up. A CZ 513 fills this roll currently, but the wood is so nice that I feel guilty every time I bump the stock on something. For this reason, I decided against the more expensive golden boy. I also handled the H100T which is the octagon barreled version. The octagon barrel sure looks cooler, like a ’94 Winchester, but I felt like the extra pound really put the balance out, so I opted for the standard H001.
PRICE: $369
THE GOOD: 5.25 lbs, 14” LOP, holds 15 in the tube. Very smooth action right out of the box and got even better after a hundred or so rounds. No misfeeds, ejects nicely. Very hard strikes, enough to actually crush the rims a good bit. The question is, will it stay smooth or will it get sloppy in time. Trigger feels surprisingly nice and is serrated for grip… Instead of creeping back and breaking it requires the hardest pull immediately so you can’t feel any pretravel when firing. The wood finish and bluing on the barrel/bolt/lever are decent. Receiver is grooved for a scope. Groups nicely at 25 yards, but I haven’t benched it yet.
THE BAD: The fit and finish leaves something to be desired. The painted receiver cover feels like it is just waiting to be scratched. I suspect that It will get scratched immediately and I will end up just taking the paint off an polishing it, or getting another cover. The barrel band was loose out of the box and doesn’t fit particularly well. It is also painted. The sights have a fairly wide rear notch and the front sight is hard to find quickly. A white dot on the front post should help tremendously. A plastic front band/sight… Looks bad, feels bad…. These are fairly minor complaints IMO.
OVERALL: A nice rifle. Looks good, feels good, shoots good. I am more than willing to overlook a few cosmetic details for the price.
A few pics.
Safety notch is very tactile and audible. There is enough distance between hammer down and safe to quickly tell by looking after you've seen it engage once.
Requires a large and a medium slotted screwdriver to get to this point. Punch required to disassemble the trigger group.
Close up of the wood. Not bad, but not as nice as the BL-22, 464, t-bolt or any of CZs models.
Scratched the receiver just taking the cover off for the first time. Of course this won’t be seen, but it demonstrates how weak this painted finish is.
Rear receiver cover screws sit out a bit on the bottom. Worse than it appears in the picture. Minor detail, but come on…
Plastic front sight band.
