The Henry Long Ranger
Making Disabilities A Little Less Disabling
The magazine-fed Henry Long Ranger takes
the lever-action rifle into the 21st Century.
My best friend has stopped competing in cowboy-action shooting and has almost given up on hunting. Why? Physical disabilities are the root cause.
As we age, the simplest things can become a point of pain. I know because I am partially disabled. I have good days and not-so-good days. Sometimes, I feel I could hike the Grand Canyon. Most days, it hurts to climb out of my truck to go to the mailbox! So, I fully empathize when my friends grunt or groan as their knees pop or their back spasms.
So, when my best friend and hunting partner mumbled the thought of giving up on hunting, I asked what barriers we could remove.
Way Back When
Years ago, my friend used a Marlin lever-action in .44 Magnum for deer hunting. At the time, we lived in the thick hardwood forests of Southern Indiana and 75 yards was about the maximum distance either of us would be shooting. We even went to Canada, where the .44 Magnum worked well on a black bear.
When Indiana changed its regulations to allow centerfire rifle cartridges, the Marlin lever action was replaced with a bolt-action .308. At the time, the rifle was a good choice.
Fast forward a few years and 1,700 miles west of Indiana. My best friend and I now live in the highlands of north-central Arizona. The hardwood forests of Indiana have been replaced with open grasslands with antelope, piñon and juniper-covered hills with mule deer and the ponderosa and aspen woods of the mountains home to elk.
The .308 rifle is a classic Western big game rifle — but mobility issues made little things painful. Simply grasping and turning the bolt handle is painful. Recoil is another important matter. While most would consider the recoil of a .308 Winchester mild, torn ligaments and arthritis amplify the pain and damage. And if we are being honest, neither of us recover as fast as we used to.
The lever-action rifle uses a different motion to load and cock. The entire hand can operate the lever and not just arthritic fingers. But, traditional lever guns use a tubular magazine and are fed by shoving fresh cartridges through a loading gate on the receiver. Such an action is also painful for arthritic fingers.
My friend still lamented the sale of the Marlin but agreed the .44 Magnum was not a great cartridge for the distances we routinely saw game. Traditionally, lever-action rifles are chambered in what once were black powder cartridges like the .38-55 or .45-70 or shoulder-bruising modern cartridges like the .444 Marlin or .450 Marlin, which still have a rainbow-like trajectory.
Another issue for many lever-action cartridges is requiring a flat-point bullet to prevent chain fire in the magazine. They are anything but aerodynamic compared to more modern cartridges.
Surely, technology has advanced enough something is available in a lever-action chambered in 21st-century cartridges? The answer is yes. Browning has the BLR and Henry offers the Long Ranger.
Both rifles are offered in many modern cartridges, such as .308 Winchester, .243 Winchester, .223 Remington, and the cartridge everyone loves to hate, the 6.5 Creedmoor.
Since I already had a Henry Original and other family members owned the Henry Golden Boy, we naturally gravitated to the Henry Long Ranger. After all, it is made in America.
Alike But Different
The Henry Long Ranger is unlike traditional rifles such as the Marlin 1895 or the Winchester 94. The gun is still sleek and narrow, but no tubular magazine exists. Instead, there is a box magazine, which makes loading easier. This also means the rifle is not limited to flat-point bullets and can consume modern cartridges with sleek bullets with high ballistic efficiency, a huge plus when hunting speed goats and mule deer in the central highlands of Arizona. Additionally, the magazine is long enough to allow heavier and longer bullets found in premium ammunition. For those who want to get the bullet closer to the lands to find the perfect loading combination, I found the magazine still had room to spare with a dummy round loaded to touch the lands.
Most lever guns have a barrel band to marry the barrel to the forearm. Again, the Henry Long Ranger is different and has a free-floating barrel, which improves accuracy and takes advantage of what modern cartridges can offer. They do so by making a cantilever arraignment with the forearm and a long bolt.
Unlike the Winchester 94, the Henry ejects the spent cases to the side, leaving the top of the receiver clean. The top of the receiver comes from the factory already tapped for a scope mount.
A plus to many would be the lack of manual safety, as the hammer has a transfer bar safety. The hammer can be safely lowered on a live round as long as the trigger isn’t being pulled. When ready to shoot, simply cock the hammer.
The older designs of many lever guns use a modified falling block to lock the bolt in place for firing. The Henry Long Ranger uses a machined and chromed steel bolt with a 6-lug rotary head driven into the barrel’s rear extension. If this sounds familiar, it should, as it is the primary action of the tried and true M16/AR15 rifles used by the military for the past 60 years. The bolt is part of a rack and pinion system, with the pinion being part of the lever.
The Long Ranger is chambered in popular modern cartridges
such as (left to right) .308 Winchester, 6.5 Creedmoor and
.223 Remington. A traditional .45-90 is shown for comparison.
Initial Testing
We were excited to see how the rifle would perform. We fed it a variety of 120- to 130-grain loads. Some shooters of the Long Ranger professed to get ¼” MOA. We could not achieve those results, but we did achieve ½” MOA with Hornady’s American Whitetail. While we tried a few other brands, none could beat the results of Hornady’s economical offering. I feel accuracy could be improved more by custom-loading my own ammunition.
Setting up for the hunt, we found the Long Ranger quick to shoulder and the recoil pad absorbed energy well. The rifle was quick to point, and the 6.5 Creedmoor round is perfect for most large game found in Arizona, from bighorn sheep and mountain lions to mule deer and antelope. With heavier bullets, it could even take elk. The lever was easy to operate even when shouldered for a second shot. Loading the magazine was doable, even with arthritic fingers. The gun is narrow, sleek and easy to hold, with sharp checkering to improve gripping with aging fingers.
Will it be the perfect Western hunting rifle? It is a lever-action, so it’s a nod to other classic hunting rifles from a century ago. My friend and I were both drawn for mule deer, so if the herds we see all summer long stick around this fall, we will put it to the test. Hopefully, we’ll continue to make memories, which is the whole point — to keep hunting.
And if you haven’t guessed it already, my best friend is my wife.
