The saddle-ring carbine buttplate has been around for a long time, and for good reason. Unlike the crescent, this one won't bring you pain.

I can see three venues for the Big Boy: hunting, defense and Cowboy Action. As a hunting gun, the accuracy is obviously there. The Big Boy can withstand any sane .44 Magnum load you care to feed it. A 265-grain or heavier hardcast bullet launched with a dollop of slow-burning powder is going to shoot through most anything you'd care to tackle with a .44 Magnum. As a deer rifle in close thickets, a 240-grain jacketed hollowpoint is going to expand and still perforate your whitetail. Fast follow-up shots will not be a problem with a Henry. For defense, it would be hard to find a firearm less likely to be viewed as an "evil assault rifle."

If you live someplace where you can own a rifle, you can most likely own a Henry. Kept loaded, locked up, with the hammer down on an empty chamber, it would be ready to go in seconds. If you're worried about overpenetration, one of the factory 180-grain jacketed hollowpoints in .44 Magnum is your best bet. Or opt for one in .357 Magnum and load it with 125-grain JHPs.

For those who don't feel comfortable with it loaded, you can make up speedloaders: Get PVC tubing of the right diameter and length. Measure out the length of 10 rounds, and drill the tube above and below for cotter pins. Push one pin in. Drop in 10 rounds; press the other pin in. To load, pull the mag tube out completely, place the PVC tube over the magazine tube, and pull out the bottom cotter pin. (Make double sure you have the tube marked as to which end is which.) Reinstall the mag tube; work the lever; you're ready.

For the Cowboy Action crowd, the benefits of the Big Boy are obvious: The lever force is relatively light, the action is smooth, the feeding is reliable, and the accuracy is everything you'd want in a carbine. With CAS-compliant ammunition the recoil is negligible. And it gets even better: Henry can engrave it for you. You can even custom-order higher-grade wood.

It would be hard to fault accuracy like this. And this is not the best group, just the average one.

When we were done, Mike was asking me if Henry could be talked into a good price for the Big Boy. "After all, it's used, right?" Me, I'm thinking I don't have a fancy firearm on hand. I might have to ask Anthony what fancy wood and engraving would run me. That way, I'll at least look good while I'm embarrassing myself with my scores while shooting Cowboy Action.

Oh, the .22? If excellence in performance can be called anticlimactic, than that's the .22 Lever Rifle. It feeds any rimfire Long Rifle-based cartridge you care to feed it. Even mixing long rifle, long and short cartridges didn't cause it to stumble. The current crop of shooters seem to think that the rimfire world revolves around the 10-22. Those of us who learned on lever guns would beg to differ. And playing "shoot the stick" at 100-yard offhand is almost boring. Make the stick jump left, make the stick jump right, it's all a matter of hold and squeeze.

The question is not "Should I get a Henry?" but "Why don't I have one already?"