Henry Golden Boy 22 LR Lever Action Rifle 20 in. Octagon – Superb Brasslite Classic

Description

The Henry Golden Boy 22 LR is the rifle that gets picked up off the rack and not put back down. A polished Brasslite receiver, a twenty-inch octagon barrel in blued steel, and an American walnut stock with a curved brass buttplate: it looks like something from 1890 and shoots like something built last week.

Underneath the brass it is a straightforward rimfire lever gun. The Henry Golden Boy 22 LR feeds 22 Short, Long and Long Rifle from a tube under the barrel, holds sixteen rounds of Long Rifle or twenty-one of Short, and weighs six and three-quarter pounds, which is heavy enough to steady and light enough to carry.

What the extra money buys over a plain Henry

• A Brasslite receiver, polished and finished rather than blacked, with a matching brass buttplate and barrel band.
• A twenty-inch octagon barrel instead of the eighteen-and-a-half-inch round one, which adds weight out front and steadies the hold.
• American walnut with more figure than the entry rifle carries.
• The receiver is drilled and tapped, so a scope or a receiver sight mounts properly.
• An extra inch and a half of sight radius, which does more for open-sight accuracy than most people expect.

Sights, handling and the tube magazine

• Fully adjustable semi-buckhorn rear sight with a diamond insert, and a brass bead front — the traditional arrangement, and a genuinely good one on a rimfire.
• The tube magazine takes 22 Short, Long and Long Rifle interchangeably, which almost no other action type manages.
• Sixteen rounds of Long Rifle or twenty-one of Short, loaded through the tube rather than a box magazine.
• Overall length is 38.5 inches, so it handles like a full-size rifle rather than a youth gun.
• 1:16 twist, standard for rimfire, and content with everything from 29-grain Short to 40-grain standard velocity.

Henry Golden Boy 22 LR specifications

• Caliber: 22 Short, 22 Long and 22 Long Rifle
• Capacity: 16 Long Rifle, 21 Short, tube magazine
• Barrel length: 20.00 in, octagon
• Overall length: 38.50 in
• Weight: 6.75 lb
• Rate of twist: 1:16
• Receiver: Brasslite, drilled and tapped
• Stock: American walnut
• Sights: adjustable semi-buckhorn rear, brass bead front
• Action: lever
• Manufacturer part number: H004
• UPC: 619835006004

22 Long Rifle is a standardized cartridge with dimensions and pressure limits published by SAAMI. A lever action does not depend on the cartridge to cycle it, so the Henry Golden Boy 22 LR will shoot subsonic and standard-velocity ammunition that a semi-automatic would choke on, and that opens up the quiet end of the rimfire shelf.

For volume, a 1,500-round jug of Winchester Wildcat 40 gr keeps the cost per trigger pull about as low as it goes. For small game, Armscor 36 gr high-velocity hollow point is the step up.

Look after the brass. Brasslite is a finish, not solid brass stock, and it will show handling marks and fingerprints the way any polished surface does. A soft cloth and no abrasive is the whole care routine; polishing compound will go through it.

If the Henry Golden Boy 22 LR is more rifle than you need, the H001 Classic is the same action with a round barrel and a blacked receiver for considerably less. Going the other way, the H1 X Model, the Frontier and the Bandit carry the lever action into centerfire calibers.

Living with brass

The Brasslite receiver cover and the curved brass buttplate are what sells the Henry Golden Boy 22 LR, and they are also the two parts that will show a life of use. Brass is soft. It takes a dent from a tailgate that would not mark blued steel, and it tones down over a few seasons into a deeper color, which a good many owners come to prefer to the showroom shine.

If you would rather keep it bright, a soft cloth and a non-abrasive brass polish is the entire procedure. Nothing abrasive, no wire wheel and no rotary tool: the finish on a Henry Golden Boy 22 LR is thin and it does not come back once it has been cut through. The blued octagon barrel and the walnut want ordinary care, which is a lightly oiled cloth on the steel and a wax on the wood.

The curved brass buttplate on the Henry Golden Boy 22 LR is period-correct rather than ergonomic. It looks right, it sits well once you have found the pocket of your shoulder, and it will slide off a shoulder that is squared up wrong. Under 22 Long Rifle that costs you nothing but a shot, and it is worth knowing before a first-time shooter picks the rifle up.

Twenty inches of octagon barrel: weight, balance and mounting glass

At 6.75 pounds the Henry Golden Boy 22 LR is a pound and a half heavier than the H001 Classic, and nearly all of that difference sits in the octagon barrel and the brass. Shooting offhand, that weight is the point: the muzzle settles and then stays settled, and groups reflect it. On a long walk, or in the hands of a smaller shooter, it is the thing they will mention first.

Mounting an optic is a different job here than on the plain Henry too. The Brasslite receiver is drilled and tapped, so it takes a base, and the ring standard is then whatever that base uses — a one-inch tube in Weaver Precision rings being the usual answer.

A scope packaged with 3/8-inch tip-off rings, which drops straight onto the grooved receiver of the H001, will not mount on a Henry Golden Boy 22 LR at all. We would rather fit the base with the rifle in front of us than guess at a combination over the phone, and it is fair to say that the semi-buckhorn rear and the brass bead are good enough that plenty of these never get a scope.

One practical footnote on the three-cartridge claim. Every 22 Short and CB Short load we list is out of stock at the moment, so the quiet end of that versatility is something we will have to order in for you rather than something you can pick off the shelf with the rifle.

Why the Henry Golden Boy 22 LR earns its place

• A rifle people ask to hold, which is not something you can say about many 22s.
• Octagon barrel and a long sight radius, so open sights actually earn their keep.
• Short, Long and Long Rifle from one tube.
• Drilled and tapped for a scope or a tang sight if you want one later.
• Made in Bayonne, New Jersey, with parts and service that will outlast you.

Be clear about what you are paying for. Mechanically the Henry Golden Boy 22 LR shoots no better than the plain H001 sitting beside it at two-thirds the price. The money goes into the octagon barrel, the brass and the wood, and whether that is worth it depends entirely on whether you enjoy looking at your rifles.

If you do, this is close to the best value in the category. It is the rifle people buy for a milestone birthday, hand down, or keep over a mantel and still take out twice a year. It also happens to be a genuinely good small-game gun at fifty yards, which the mantel-piece framing tends to obscure.

In stock now at MAG5 Firearms in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Transfers to your FFL, and we answer the phone.