.22 Levergun

[azmark]

Who makes good .22 Leverguns besides Henry? I had the octagon barrelled model, but it was sold to help finance another rifle. I'm having trouble justifying the cost of another octagon barrel Henry even though my wife thought it was "pretty". Surely there are less expensive options.

[Blaine]

Personally, if I were looking for an inexpensive, nice, accurate .22 lever, I'd find an ugly Marlin 39 of some sort, or a beater Winchester 9422 and clean it up. Anything new these days will be expensive. Mossberg makes a .22 lever, but I cannot vouch for it. Browning makes a dandy, but new they are over 500.00.....

[airedaleman]

Get the base Henry model (H001). All you could hope for in affordable .22.

[AJMD429]

The Ruger 96's are one-piece stocks like the old Winchester Model 88's, and Marlin Model 62's, and have a nice, slick, and short lever-throw, indestructable 10-shot magazine (same as 10/22's use), but of course the Rugers are "ugly", whereas the Winchesters and Marlins are "classics". I guess the good news is that you can sometimes find a used Ruger 96 fairly cheap. I have one in .22 LR, .22 Mag, and .17 HMR (just bought a .22 Mag and put a .17 HMR barrel on it - took a whopping 10 minutes and an allen-wrench...), plus one in .44 Mag.

[Blaine]

The Ruger 96's are one-piece stocks like the old Winchester Model 88's, and Marlin Model 62's, and have a nice, slick, and short lever-throw, indestructable 10-shot magazine (same as 10/22's use), but of course the Rugers are "ugly", whereas the Winchesters and Marlins are "classics". I guess the good news is that you can sometimes find a used Ruger 96 fairly cheap. I have one in .22 LR, .22 Mag, and .17 HMR (just bought a .22 Mag and put a .17 HMR barrel on it - took a whopping 10 minutes and an allen-wrench...), plus one in .44 Mag.

If you think they are ugly, why did you get them?

[AJMD429]

If you think they are ugly, why did you get them?

I think it's because the 'consensus' among traditional-levergunners seems to be that they are 'ugly', but to me, the proof-is-in-the-pudding, and although I long ago shot a Marlin 39A, it felt unnaturally-large (it is three inches longer than the Ruger 96, and a pound and a half lighter), and though I pretty much love the 1894's and 336's I've handled, the 'ugly' Ruger used magazines I had a dozen of already, fed perfectly, unloaded instantly, had a short lever-throw, was smooth, allowed easy mounting of a scope (to take advantage of the excellent accuracy most .22 LR leverguns have), and was very quickly taken down to metal vs. wood for cleaning when I got out in the mud or rain or dust or whatever (the 'take-down' feature of the 39A might be useful if the gun were suppressed and I was an assassin looking for the ability to put it in a briefcase, but to me it was more useful to be able to get the wood off and clean the metal, than to just separate the gun into two wood-and-steel sections). Although I thought the 'carbine barrel band' looked as silly on the 96/22 as on the 10/22 (they got smart and left it off the 77/22's), I don't care as much about how my guns look, as how they function, and unless I wanted to actually use .22 Shorts, I couldn't see ANY advantage for the Marlin 39A vs. the Ruger 96, particularly at twice the cost. Now, if I'd handled a Henry (even slicker than the Ruger) back then, I'd have had a harder time deciding, but at the time, my choice boiled down to buying a .22 LR AND a .22 Mag Ruger, for the same cost as a really nice, pretty, 'classic' Marlin 39A. Since I liked to shoot groundhogs in early dawn when they peeked out of their burrows at the time, and thus needed a good 'light-gathering' scope, the decision was easy, and I never looked back...

(Thanks for asking... )

Rugers Rock...!!!!



P.S. - I decided to make a couple of mine even sillier-looking, by

• a) adding a 'flash-suppressor' to the .22 LR one, NOT because I was worried about being blinded by muzzle-flash from those hot CCI Mini-Mags, but rather because it is such a compact and easy-to-handle levergun for 'newbies', and 'newbies' tend to be kids who stick the muzzle down in the dirt and so on sometimes - it protects the muzzle.
  
  b) adding an even sillier-looking huge red-dot scope, which makes it so EASY for a newbie to actually HIT a target the first time, vs. the 'must-have-cheek-weld' and hard-to-get-used-to traditional open notch sight. The 'newbie' can use whatever head position gets them a look through the scope, and hit the gong, which gets them interested in doing more shooting, and becoming a fellow levergun-addict...
  
  c) adding that 'extended recoil-pad' to the .44 Magnum version, NOT because of 'recoil', but rather to increase the length-of-pull to what I prefer as an adult.

Later on, I 'saw the light', and replaced the bulky red-dot scope with an open-style holosight, because the switchable reticles seemed to help the newbie shooters who often used the gun be able to hit their targets more easily. The cool thing is that although it's more compact than the original red-dot one, it's even sillier-looking.

Of course, the ultimate insult to 'tradition' was adding an integrally-suppressed barrel to the .22 LR one, so the 'newbies' wouldn't be distracted by noise, or develop a tendency to 'flinch' like I've seen when a non-gun-kid starts shooting with even a 'regular' .22 LR rifle. (Plus, it's fun to see the look on the hovering non-gun-parent's face when they realize their kid is actually shooting a gun equipped with. . . a suppressor. . .

[J Miller]

I don't consider the Ruger 96s as ugly, just another design. But my concern is the trigger pull. The one I had the experience to shoot had the most hideously heavy and gritty trigger pull I've ever had the opportunity to shoot.

Ruger should be ashamed of themselves for making such a terrible trigger.

JMHO

Joe

[AJMD429]

I don't consider the Ruger 96s as ugly, just another design. But my concern is the trigger pull. The one I had the experience to shoot had the most hideously heavy and gritty trigger pull I've ever had the opportunity to shoot.

You must have had a crummy one; of the four I've had, none had a particularly bad trigger. None were 'match-quality', but I've not shot any better groups with my 77/22's than my 96/22, nor with my Marlin 1894* vs. the 96/44. If I remember right, the trigger-spring goes in the top of the trigger and grit can get in there and bind the plunger, but so far hasn't been an issue.

*...now my son's (formerly mine) 1894 is one of those 'enchanted' guns, that shoots every bullet-weight and load into nice compact groups, all quite close to one another at 50 yards... The fancy 1894SS I replaced it with lacks such magic.

[Ji in Hawaii]

Rare as hen's teeth nowadays but if you run across one I'd recommend what I have a Taurus model 62LAR. They are all steel (mine is stainless) and built very well, and operates very smoothly. I really like the unique design based closely on the 62 pumpgun.


I also owned a Henry levergun and she was reliable, accurate and smooth but she went to my nephew when I lived on Maui. The Henry bang-for-the-buck hard to beat in spite of it's spray painted ZAMAK receiver metal and plastic front sight.

Uberti makes a 22 levergun similar in lines to a Henry Goldenboy though different in design.
http://www.uberti.com/firearms/silverbo ... action.php

[awp101]

Does the 96/22 take the same trigger group as the 10/22?

[Pete44ru]

Surely someone that's said They've seen and/or bought Marlin 39's and Winchester 9422's all over the place for under $200 could send you one........................


.

[pneuby]

The Mossy is nothing more than the Henry...aka Ithaca...design with Mossy's tag and at an ever higher price. They put their tang switch on it, of course, and I bet that's why the trigger sets much further forward then on the Henry.

That Taurus is 'da BOMB.

[Mike Rintoul]

New one? Ithaca made a repeater once upon a time and they tend to be reasonable if you find one (used of course).

[AJMD429]

Does the 96/22 take the same trigger group as the 10/22?

It appears significantly different overall from the outside (assembled 'lower' group), but may have some similar internals, if you were wondering about an upgrade. Much of the 10/22 upgrade kit is shims and such that should be pretty generic. Stoning the sear/trigger could help if they can't just be swapped for custom target ones.