Long time reader, and good friend Termite sent me a link. He said that I might enjoy this particular rifle. After searching around, I admit that I am intrigued. It seems that Henry Repeating Arms, (yeah, the lever guys) have come out with a semiauto 9mm carbine with wood furniture, and one of the variants takes Glock magazines.
Put in the Glock magazine adapter and stuff a 9mm 50 round drum in it and you've got something
ReplyDeleteI've seen comparisons between it and the Ruger PC carbine, which I like, but I haven't handled one to compare it.
ReplyDeleteLOTS of guns are using Glock mags or making it an option now, which think is great.
The Henry is about twice the price of the Ruger. My gut is that will be a significant issue for them.
DeleteOh look, someone made a better looking Marlin Camp Carbine. This one looks a bit like a baby Browning BAR hunting rifle. Neat.
ReplyDeleteThe 9mm pistol cartridge runs at similar pressure to the .357 Magnum, 35K psi. +P and +P+ 9mm runs at pressures approaching .30-30 rifle, 42K psi. Shotguns run at around 11.5psi, though the 3.5" shells can make about 14K psi. Modern center-fire rifles run at 50-65K.
I mention pressures because this new Henry uses a blow back bolt, just like the fat chunk of steel bolt used on the old Camp Carbine, a poorly made firearm that had as much bolt flash as it did muzzle flash.
As just about every 9mm pistol has some kind of bolt locking mechanism, a blow back action on a rifle with an almost $1000 MSRP seems a bit lazy. Not to mention the super simple 3 piece inertial bolts used on many modern semi-auto shotguns. The roller delayed blow back system HK used on the G3 battle rifle could handle any level of chamber pressure. My point is that a filthy blow back action is a disservice to buyers, as simple locking mechanisms have existed for decades that are not expensive to manufacture.
I've owned several of the old Camp Carbines. You buy the super heavy recoil spring and a few heavy duty magazine springs from Wolfe, and this cuts down the bolt flash a lot, and you get a bit better velocity. The sears wear out just as fast either way, turning this junk gun into a random machine gun after just a couple thousand rounds fired. Which is why it was taken out of production.
The best thing about a locked bolt, even a temporarily locked bolt, on a rifle is that keeping the gas in the barrel longer means higher velocity. This is especially true with high pressure (compared to some older pistol cartridges) pistols like the 9mm. Now add in a carbine length barrel, which is exactly what the 9mm round really wants, and you get hundreds more fps.
With it's standard 1:10 twist, this Henry could be an effective short range deer rifle with the heaviest SP bullets. But it's not built that way, so hunting will be limited to slow moving bunny rabbits out to about 80 yards.
I love Henrys, but I'll pass on this one. Stick with their lever guns in .357 and use .38 Spl +P for home defense. More than enough oomph, nearly as fast reloading, and no flash in the face.