You might wonder about the brass frame of the Big Boy. You'd think brass is soft, right? On this use you'd be wrong. There are brass alloys with tensile and yield strengths as good as or better than steels commonly used in firearms manufacturing. Anthony simply told his engineers to find an alloy that was up to the job and someone who made it. So they did. Like the steel (and everything else in the Henry Repeating rifle catalog), the brass castings are made in America. The castings are inspected before, during and after they are machined and polished.

Each and every Henry Rifle is proof-tested, then has a full tube of ammo fired through it.

Not everything is made right there in Brooklyn. The hammers and sears, for instance, arrive from a subcontractor. But after inspection, they have the engagement surfaces surface-ground in-house before they get blued. Pins and springs, things like that, come from suppliers. The wood is good old Midwest walnut. Before the assembly crew gets to the task of building rifles, they sort wood. They spend the time to match fore-ends and buttstocks so your Henry looks right. Once paired, the wood stays in "socks," felt bags with elastic around the opening. That way they don't get scratched. When the stock goes onto a rifle, the sock stays on the stock until the rifle goes into a shipping box.

Of all the attentions to detail, the sorting and grading of wood impressed me the most. When I used to work in a gunshop, the store once bought 105 brand-name shotguns in one purchase. Lucky me, I was the only one there when the truck arrived. After I unloaded them all (the truck driver was a Teamster--he didn't do unloading), I was outraged to find that the big-name shotgun maker had made no apparent effort to match stocks to forearms. Henry does, and my hat is off to the company for doing so.

In a separate section of the plant each rifle gets a proof load and a full tube of full-power ammunition test-fired through it, then it's inspected again. One last inspection for nicks, scratches or cosmetic flaws; a wiped down; and into the boxes they go.

The barrel machines may be old, but they are looked after and well maintained. It's hard to best the combination of big, sturdy and loved.

The Imperato family has been in the firearms business on almost every level for a century: shooters, retail, wholesale, manufacturing. Anthony knows from personal experience what it's like as a customer or a retailer to open a box with a new firearm and see a scratch, ding or cosmetic "oops." The Henry Repeating rifle company simply builds into its process the steps to prevent and/or catch those flaws before they go out the door.

The Henry rifles sent to me were a Big Boy just like the one I shot at the writers' conference and the .22LR Lever Action. The actions of both were just as smooth as those I shot at the conference, and accuracy-wise, I have to say there is no difference either. The Big Boy arrived in .44 Magnum, but you can also have it in .45 Colt and .357 Magnum. Yes, it is approved for Cowboy Action shooting.

A tray of .22LR barrels after the computer has machined sight slots, mag-tube slots and extractor slots.

Loading the Big Boy is not like loading the Browning or Browning-derived lever actions. You load it just like you would a .22LR lever action. Turn the magazine tube; lift and then place each round into the tube through the loading gate. Ten rounds later, shove the tube down and turn it to lock it in place. This is perhaps not as elegant as the side-loading method, but it's solid, reliable, requires fewer parts and is smoother in operation.