An Alexander Henry right side hammer rifle in 450 #2 has come to live with me. It is of about mid 1870s vintage and is somewhat unusual in that it is fitted with a detachable rear long range tang sight. The sight is not made to come down low enough to be used with the front sight at anything less than 4 or 5 hundred yards and the rifle has the usual barrel mounted 2 leaf and a slide bar rear sight. Pondering this I started looking at the front sight which seemed a bit odd to me. It is obviously original but just a very small square sided and ended block with a bead and set well back from the muzzle. The interesting thing is that the sight block has a hole running through its base. I could well see a detachable and higher front sight that would sit on the block and fasten through the hole and possibly even have a wind gauge adjustment. Since the 450 #2 was a popular target cartridge of the period it stands to reason that the rifle could have been ordered with, in effect, 2 sets of sights. The barrel also appears to have a very fast twist that was used with the heavy target bullets. Has anyone seen anything like this or a Henry with an odd holed front sight? While I'm writing, does anyone have a spare set of 450 #2 (500/450 #2 Musket to use one of its longer names) loading dies sitting around the house?

I'd be interested to see photos of the entire rifle but especially the front sight. Your situation is not an uncommon one and several different types of front sights exist to deal with it. I'm not aware of anything like that from Henry, but it would not surprise me. I have a ladder front sight to install on my front sight for this problem.

Does your rifle have that most unique elevating cheek piece or signs of having had a heel-mounted rear sight?

What is the rifling twist?

If you have good photos, I may know someone that will probably know. He is a long range Henry collector, though mostly for muzzleloaders.

There is a thread on the Facebook Alexander Henry group discussing the removable target sights on a muzzleloader.
Some nice pictures in that group from time to time as well.

SKB, that sounds interesting. Do you have a link to that thread? Brent, I've PM'ed you. No elevating cheek piece and no heel mount. Just a nice Grade 2 Henry with long range sight provisions - up to 800 on the barrel ladder sight and a long ways on the tang. Twist is 18. I have pics.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AlexHenryRifles

It is a private group, you will need to ask to join.

I was fortunate to see this Alexander Henry after Halfadouble purchased it! Made me weak in the knees just holding and examining such a gorgeous rifle! I hope he can post pictures here as it's really a lovely firearm!

Val, it is, indeed, beautiful. And, no doubt, extraordinarily functional as well.

Vall, I seem to recall fondling a nice Ballard that you picked up;-) Will we hear about that one?

I guess so, but hate to drag down your post with my much lower grade Rigby Ballard Chauncey! Mine's a nice gun, but not on the level of your Alexander Henry!

Yeah, right, JUST a Rigby Ballard. I think Brent will be posting pics of mine when he gets through giving his dog swimming lessons in Lake Michigan;-
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In the meantime, here's a couple pics of my purchase at the CGCA show. That's a 6x Stevens-Ideal 32" scope, perfect optics, and also from the same show.



I believe it's LD Nimscke engraved.

Not discounting the overall appeal of Vall's rifle, the engraving is about as nice as you will see. Suspect it can be traced to a name engraver.
Chuck

Sorry, but I'm in a tent right now on a grousing expedition. I'll try for some internet service to upload theses asap, but I haven't found a beaver lodge with wifi yet.

Dang beavers! No sweat, Brent. It's not going anywhere. I'm already designing a slip-on pinned base with a 3/8 dovetail for a MVA or maybe Pedersoli windgauge sight with a level. I was trying to determine at what point the bullet I'm considering for a starter (a light 462 grain Steve Brooks) would be if seated to touch the rifling. Surprised me how far out it was. I did a Cerrosafe cast and discovered a long freebore with a diameter very nearly that of the chamber neck. Looks like it was designed to shoot a really long (heavy) bullet while seated out to give maximum powder space. I decided to play with the idea. My beautiful set of dies had arrived from Dave at CH4D and a box full of 50-90 Starline had arrived from Midway. I had cut one 50-90 to the length of the 450 #2 (2.36) and run the case into the sizer. I was wondering if the sizing would increase or decrease the length but it came out the same 2.36 and dropped right into the chamber. I put just enough flare into the case mouth to have a slip start on the bullet and this gave me a friction fit on the case into the chamber but would be taken out by the seater. So all go there. Well, what would happen if I ran an uncut 50-90 into the sizer? Answer, I got a 2.51 inch case that dropped into the chamber. The flared mouth was a bit tighter since the freebore is a very bit smaller than the case neck but again the seater would take care of that. This length case would allow me to seat the 462 grain bullet to the rifling and have the two base bands in the neck and probably up the powder capacity to at least 85 grains. A nice place to start. I'm going to load a few and fire form the brass and see what happens. That would make it a 450 #2 XL;-)

Sounds like a conventional (in the day) chamber. Probably shot paper patched bullets made to be land diameter after patching. Paper patching is what I would do with it. It's what I do with nearly all my centerfire rifles.

Chuck, I had Bob Evans examine this Rigby this morning at our OAC collectors show. Bob was the historian for the Engraver's Guild, and he felt the work on my Rigby appeared to be that of LD Nimschke.

I've been off the grid for almost 2 weeks roaming around the North Country looking for a new place to live and grouse, especially grouse. Found a lot of birds. But without a decent internet connection, or even any connection much of the time, I was not able to get around to uploading these for HalfaDouble, until now.

Posted 8:21 20211002

Thanks, Brent. In the meanwhile, I have received CH4D dies (they were in stock!), formed 100 50-90 Starline brass, and loaded them for fireforming. Soon, boom! By the way, I have heard from Richard Brown (Henry's great, great, grandson) that my rifle is in the shop book as "an express and long range rifle". Thank you again, Richard. The tang sight is a typical Henry long range sight and the front sight would have been something special with windage so would have been attached to the atypical express sight base, both front and rear long range sights being quick detachable. Unfortunately, the front was quick enough to detach that it did so and has wandered off in the last 147 years. Oh, that's the other info from Richard - it was purchased by a John Boyden on 19 May, 1874.

Brass was fire formed and trimmed to true up the necks. Preliminary ladder tests with smokeless and a 430 grain were accomplished and will be proofed soon. A special mold was ordered which casts 480 and 535 grain bullets so black powder testing will start soon. A wind gauge front sight with level has been acquired and drafting for the front sight adapter for it is underway. A joy to shoot.

Very nice....

Got out to the range yesterday and one of the two smokeless loads I had picked from the ladder test put 7 shots at 100 yards into a little over 1.5 inches, so a good start there. I also shot ladder tests with black powder and the 480 and 535 grain bullets. I have to say that touching off a 535 grain bullet and 86 grains of black gets you attention in the 8 pound 9 3/4 ounce rifle!

I bet it did!
My recent foray into BP I loaded up .45-70 with my 526 gr. bullets and 64 grs. of 2fg BP, and it left my shoulder a little bruised! Can't even imagine 86 grs. in your lighter rifle!

You will toughen up after a bit. I shoot between 82gr of Swiss 2f and 100 gr of the same using a 514 or 535 gr bullet in matches using my various .45s. That's 45 to 60 shots per day in multi-day matches. You will learn to mount your rifle correctly and consistently, or it will let you know about it. Usually 1 or two range sessions is all intakes every spring.

You know though, it is really close to shooting a 12 gauge HV with 1 1/4 ounces of shot. Of course, I wouldn't want to do that much from a bench, and prone, not at all. I had a 12 that would double every now and then and the guys I was shooting with would tell me it happened and I wouldn't believe them until I opened the action. I guess standing and shooting at a moving target makes the difference.

My issue is the buttplate. My Ballard Perfection is a low 3 digit serial number, and was built when Marlin was using up Brown Mfg. parts. So receiver is Marlin, but trigger, hammer, and the crescent buttplate is all Brown Mfg. Brown Mfg. made their version of the crescent buttplate very deep, unlike Marlin's were. So the two points are brutal no matter how you hold it! I use a PAST recoil pad to help. Even with that the two points can hammer me through the recoil pad.

Vall, you can fix that without modification using a lace on leather should sling butt piece and then as many laminations of thick leather as needed to fill out the crescent contour. Di do this for an old Marlin 95 and a Sharps #3. More to get some length than to overcome the crescent, but it has that effect anyway. Quite easy to shoot.

Or you make a second stock for it of course...

Here's a picture of my Perfection's early Brown style buttplate.





If I was to build up the depth of the crescent it would easily add 1" to the length of pull. And then add a lace on cover, and I'd be stretching to reach the trigger. My only option would be to make up a 2nd buttstock with a plain shotgun style buttplate, or keep using this one with my PAST recoil pad, which is marginal at padding those points.
I do have a couple old crummy Ballard buttstocks I could refit to this #4 to use it in our 1000 yd. matches. But likely I'll just set it aside, and switch to my Whitney-Laidley .45-70, or my Hepburn in same. Both lighter guns, with 30" barrels, but more comfortable buttplates. Don't really want to change this #4, as it's the first Ballard rifle I ever bought many decades ago.

No, you don't have to fill it completely to do what you want and even if you filled it completely, it might actually fit you better. My Ballard is no different than yours. Except that is probably a bigger caliber (it's a Pacific .45).


But whatever works for you, works for you. Just suggesting what works for me.

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Here is a reproduction of an AH front sight. I have one of these and it's pretty nice after some refitting. Note it has a cross-wise hole in the base that holds the staff to the base. The hole is tapered so the screw wedges itself as tightened.

https://www.buffaloarms.com/alexander-henry-elevating-long-sf12.html

Yours also has the deep crescent Brown buttplate? What's the serial number range? Most I've seen are all 3 digit serial numbers like mine, and were used up in the first less than 1000 Marlin Ballard rifles.

Brent, that’s interesting but not a solution. The detachable front portion must fit over the existing front sight, be as low as possible and have windage adjustment.

I am extremely happy to report that a friend offered to use his great experience and skill to produce from my drawings exactly what the detachable front block that holds the wind gauge sight must have looked like. He turned a raw block of steel into a little jewel and I will polish and blue it today and my Henry will be complete again! When that is done I will take a pic of the new complete front sight and maybe BrentD will post it here for me. Oh, I know that Pedersoli intended the sight to be mounted 180 degrees around but for now I have my reasons for doing it this way. We'll see.

I can do that - with about a 24 hr Dave-delay, of course.

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Brent says to try this. Thanks, Brent.

Good to see a happy ending. Very nice work as well. Enjoy that rifle in good health!

Wow - this is great !

I turned the windgauge sight around this afternoon to bring it to the factory position. I had to shave the bottom of the level housing a couple of thousandths to clear the front sight bead but not a problem. Originally I had picked up a set of the inserts that Pedersoli makes for their Gibbs globe front. These have finer guts in the insert and no vertical support which would have masked the bubble the way I originally had it mounted. I used a diamond bit to remove half of the width of the center of the bottom of the ring and that gave a clear sight path to the top of the bubble but decided in the greater scheme of things it would be better to just turn the sight around. It is working fine in use.