Hi All
Well, I went and did it and purchased my very first Handi in 22 Hornet. I have been researching on this forum and other places on the internet and thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into, both in terms of the Hornet and the Handi. I am a hand loader and caster by preference so I knew I would have hours of pleasant fun ahead of me working up a suitable cast load for this pea shooter. Little did I know!
Anyway, first time owner impressions on the Handi when I opened the box for the first time "Lordy this thing is CRUDE!" Sorry, but it is true! I knew from reading the forum that the "fit and finish" left a little to be desired and I would have to do some fine tuning and possibly refinishing on my new toy but, WOW! The barrel looks like they took it right off of the lathe and briefly dunked it in the bluing tank. Very briefly as the bluing had pretty much worn off of the barrel where it contacted the cardboard spacer used in the shipping box. The action was a little bit better finished, maybe. The Plastic stock was fairly nice looking, for plastic, and went well with the dull "matt" finish of the barrel and action. No worries about reflected light scarring anything from this rig! The stock is also set up for iron sights and is pretty much useless for scope work. Did I mention that it is hollow plastic and goes THUNK every time you rap on it sort of like a drum with a loose top?
The first empty round I chambered, to check head space, was like running a cheese greater over the face of the brass because the breech face was so rough. Opening and closing the breach 3-4 times almost wore the lettering right off of the brass! Little bit of 400 grit wet/dry and a lot of elbow grease took care of that, and I did the chamber face while I was at it. This did not appreciably affect the headspace and it still locks up tight.
After I cleaned up the bore I looked down and the bore and chamber appear pretty shiny and bright without any undue machine marks, but where is the throat? I mean the rifling starts right at the end of the chamber! Crude, but I guess it will make it easy to set the bullets right up against the lands.
I also measure the trigger pull. Nice crisp release at about 7.5 -8 pounds as expected. Out came the pins and out came the guts. Surprisingly the internals were relatively smooth and it took very little stoning and buffing to get things really smooth. Question for H&R, would it hurt to at least blow out the receiver and put a little lube on mating surfaces while assembling the action? Action was bone dry and gritty out of the box. After minimal polishing and lots of good molly lube the trigger pull is now a nice crisp 3 pounds. I can live with that.
Finally I removed the factory open sights and installed a one piece H&R INTEGRAL SCOPE MOUNT which proved not to fit very well to the contour of the roughly machined OD of the barrel. A little JB weld took care of that, hope the release agent (shoe polish) works or that I never have to remove it! Then I mounted a nice old Leupold 3.5x7 scope, bore sighted it and figured I was ready to go make a little noise.
Just for grins and giggles I started recording right off the bat knowing that the barrel will only get better. I started with some 43gr hard lead round nose gas check bullets in front of a bit of Unique and 296 that I had laying around.
Needless to say the first ten shots looked like I was patterning a full choke shotgun with about a 6-8 inch group at 25 yards! Ok, so it did not like that combination much but I had 4 different loads to try on the first go around. Not surprising that it did not do much better with any of them. Back to the shop to make up 20 "special" lead bullets rolled in lapping compound, 400, 600, 800, & 1200 for a little fire lapping session. I would have done a conventional lap on it but I did not figure it was worth "preserving" the non-existent throat and a little wear in that area could do nothing but help. After fire lapping and a thorough cleaning the bore shone like a mirror and the sharp corners were gone in the "throat". So, back to the reloading bench and crank out another 50 rounds with 5 different combinations of bullets and powders.
Huge improvement! Well, relatively speaking. Groups were now down to about 3-4" at 25 yards.
Next I ditched the forearm and put the front of the action on the sand bag. Groups shrank to under 2" with 2400 powder and 37gr FPGC bullet. Better, but this is still at 24 yards so we have a long way to go.
Next, I shimmed the lug against the frame. More "crudeness" here. I should not have had to stuff 32 thousandths worth of shims in there to get a light friction fit! In the process I noticed that the barrel was not parallel with the receiver. About ten thou. misalignment front to rear and 20 off side to side. A little judicious grinding and polishing on the lug straightened things right out. Now we are square and tight. Starting to get a little nervous about the lock up though, much more of this and I am going to have to shin the lug to get it to lock up tight. Back to the range.
Best, if you can call it that, to date 37gr. FN GC in front of 7gr of 2400 laid five in there at about 1" at 25 yards. Hardly a tack driver and I am running out of things to throw down range.
Just for fun, and out of frustration, after shooting the Handi I sent a couple of cylinders full of 357 wad cutters down rage this morning out of my 6" scoped S&W revolver off the bags and it shot just about the same group that the Hornet did! That is just sad.
I have some Jacketed bullets on the way and we will see if it does any better with those. On the up-side, the bore is so nicely polished that there is no sign of leading even though some of the loads were pretty hot for lead bullets.
To date I have just over 200 rounds through it and am getting a little disenchanted with my newUn-Handi rifle!
Just my experience, your results may vary and I do not recommend doing anything that I did.
Jim.
