Henry Long Ranger Lever Action Rifle .223 Rem/5.56 NATO - Blue/Black, 20" Barrel, 5+1 Rounds, Wood, American Walnut Stock

So far, this rifle is everything that I expected it to be. An earlier reviewer commented on difficulty chambering rounds. I found this to be more of an issue with the first round from a full magazine but a matter that simply requires a bit of a learning curve, The lever must be raised firmly and I found that placing the thumb over the neck of the stock as soon as it would reach and clenching the hand seems to do the trick. However, since I was shooting from a benchrest, to get the scope zeroed, I found that it worked better to swing the butt out of the rear bag, to give more space and a better angle in which to operate the lever. Speaking of learning curves, I was in the process of getting accustomed to shooting off the left shoulder (small cataract in the right eye) and it seemed as though I was just finding my technique as I finished zeroing at 100 yards. With Federal's American Eagle M193-equivalent 55 gr. FMJ load, the rifle seems capable of shooting 1 MOA or better.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Lever guns in general are more nostalgic and cool then all that practical. Bolt guns typically shoot farther, and are easier to keep on target while you cycle your firearm. This was my first jump into the rifle side of shooting. I wanted the bolt gun for distance and the calibers it offered but there was something that just kept wanting the lever gun for the 8year old boy who watched westerns with his Grandpa and wanted to be a cowboy 30 years ago. Looking around on the internet I stumbled onto a lever gun that shot .223. I had seen the Browning BLR and knew it was magazine fed but didn't really like the glossy look of it. Then Henry popped up and I was immediately hooked. I'm not a hunter so I didn't need to consider the .308 just yet and as I mentioned I'm new to rifles so I went with the .223. Buds as always was fast to deliver and my local FFL got it to me quickly. I ended up getting one without the iron sights and I mounted a Leupold VX2 (3x9x40) on it. Before I go farther, the cool factor I was looking for was evident in every way with this gun. It's a head turner for sure and beautiful as any Henry. I have yet to take it out of the bag when people don't comment or ask me about it. So before I took it to the range I decided to load it and cycle through a few rounds to see how the action felt before I took a completely new gun in a completely new platform out into public. In short I didn't want to look like I had no idea what I was doing in front of the others at the range. I was disappointed at how quickly it jammed and failed to feed the next round into the chamber. I watched some Youtube video's and you will see some of they very popular gun review names on Youtube having issues as well and making comments about how you have to "cycle it like a man" or put some more power into it. I contacted Henry to see if this was the case and if it would ease up as I ran a few rounds though it. Legendary Henry customer service got back to me in 24 hours and let me know the gun was meant to be cycled quickly and smoothly, not slow and soft and if quickly didn't solve it they would have me send it back to check it out. So I took it to the range and decided to shoot it "like a man". It didn't solve all the issues but if you are doing it quickly and with a good amount of consistent movement the jamming issues were minimal and the gun preformed awesomely. Once again being new to the rifle side the fact that I could put 3 shots in the same hole at 30yrds (once sighted in) and sub MOA at 50yrds and MOA at 100yds was more then I could have asked for. It definitely has it's quirks and it does like some ammo more then others but once you find the sweet spot this rifle really performs. I love when American companies produce an amazing product that begs to be bought and in this case Henry has done that for me. I'm not really sure it's practical or the best gun our there but shoot is supposed to be fun too and this was truly fun.