Henry BB 45 Colt

[Ian]

Back on topic, I just ordered a new mould that Tom drew up for me. Basically we re-worked the 310-grain one I cut from the old Ideal .38 mould, put the crimp groove in a better place for the Henry leverguns, lightened it a little, and spec'd it at .452". I have the option to powder coat and size .4525-.453" or add a pinch of tin and shoot them as standard lubed ones. The catalog number is 45-297G if anyone has an interest. Stay tuned for range reports...

 

[fiver]

231 used to be 230-p and just 230 before that. [I still have 4-5 oz's of 230-P here somewhere]

airc hp-38 used to be amore uniform blacker powder, and 231 was a black silver bunch of flakes.
the 231 I have is umm oldish well from the 80's metal topped round tins & early 90's plastic mixed together and it seems to be a shiny grey on one side and a darker graphite color on the other.
just looking at it through a powder measure it always seemed to be flattened ball into a flake like that was folded or cut in half, like floor sweepings.
it does shoot in the 45 with 230's and in the 44 under 240's.

 

[freebullet]

Nice!

Should be interesting. Waiting for the mold should give you time to make the brass saddle qd scope mount.

 

[Ian]

Nope, waiting on Christmas, hoping for a mill, THEN off to make the brass saddle QD scope mount. Did Unertl make brass scopes?

 

[fiver]

fairly sure their older ones were but got painted black.
you could find some reproductions that are full length, externally adjusted, and use mounts in both sight grooves.

 

[Ian]

Yeah, I was ogling some Hi-Lux repros on my lunch break today, they got a nice one with brass hardware but it's nearly three feet long. It would look silly even on my 1874 Shiloh Sharps. The mid-length one looks pretty good, might not be bad on my BB with the octagonal barrel, might have to cut a third dovetail though. The wheels are still turning in my head, with my eyes I'm definitely going to need a scope to be able to shoot under 3" at 100 anymore.

My BB must have sat in the gun store for a really long time, it doesn't have ANY scope mount screw holes, not even the ones concealed by the later model rear sight adjuster for the Henry-made cantilever mount. They started drilling the receivers in 2011, before that just under the rear sight, and mine must pre-date even the barrel drilling.

 

[fiver]

if you wanted modern standard you could use some Winchester angle eject mounts and D/T the top of the frame.

 

[Ian]

I really don't. Henry makes a nice receiver mount for the late-model BB and I have the taps and screws to fit it, but my plan is to take it off once I get the load perfected and go back to irons. I'm sure it would be possible to make some sort of temporary scout mount that just clamped on the barrel for load testing, that idea comprises at least a few of the teeth of the gears rolling in my head at the moment. I might settle for a 2-moa reflex optic mount in the rear sight location since I can still shoot those pretty well against the appropriate target pattern.