doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com alexander henry missing part

I'm doing restoration work on a henry double rifle #402x. .500 BPE with bottom swinging lever action lock. A part is missing on the barrel lug that is supposed to prevent overtravel of the locking lever. I can't find any photos or schematics that shows what this part looks like or how it functions. I can make the part if I know what it looks like. Any help on this would be appreciated.

Hello rlr
Welcome to the site on your first posting
As you can see the AH double rifles are rare
Maybe someone will happen by soon and I also
posted this on the double rifle area
http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=517852#Post517852

Mike

Thanks,
I've been trying to find this part, or pictures of it, for about a year now. The rifle functions fine without it but it needs to be there.
Bob Ray

Pictures would help to to be honest you are likely looking at making it via the bump and grind method. Might take a try or two but reverse engineering the part is likely your best bet. Often times the stop for an under lever is internal to the frame. So many variations in the British trade and Henry was always tweaking his ideas, things changed constantly. Post a few pictures and maybe I can be of more help. Best of luck with it.
Steve

Hello rlr:

I have a Stephen Grant 20 bore that is converted from a .500 BPE made by Alex Henry circa 1873. It uses the Jones underlever, as does yours (judging by your description).
If you can send me your email, I can send some photos of the barrel lugs, etc.

Cheers!

M Batten

Steve is right about A. Henry trying a number of ideas on his Jones underlever rifles.
I have three, a .500 hammer, a 577 hammer and a 450 hammerless and they are all different.
That said, I don't see anything on the barrels that acts as a stop for the lever swing.
The design of the lockup is similar to the way a bolt locks into the receiver ring on a bolt action rifle so there is really no possibility of the lever to over travel on closing.
Imagine the opposing bites on the barrel lug are the receiver ring and the Jones lever screws into those lugs as a bolt would turn into a receiver on a bolt action thus drawing the action closed.

The 450 stays open on the tension of the cocker.
The 500 stays open with a little spring latch.
The 577 will flop one way or the other when the action is open as it doesn't have any hold open feature.

All three do have a variation of a stop on the underside of the trigger guard to keep the lever from flopping open when closed.

500



577



450



The 500 has a spring inlet into the lever to mate up with a notch in the underside of the frame where the lever attaches.
It does function as a stop of sorts but it also holds the lever in the open position as well.





The hammerless cocks off of the lever rotation and it looks like the cocking dog is possibly used as a rotation stop as well. Can't get a good picture of that yet