NECROMANCERS!!! Run for the hills .... the NECROMANCERS are loose!!!
It is some fun to revisit some of these older threads. Cleaning a Henry is something near and dear to my heart. I only shoot four of the things. Plus a couple of 1866s. And they are ALL ... .45s ... whoops, except one .44 Special.
Inna Wabac (think Perfesser and Sherman) I was one of the proponents of running 44-40 cases thru my 45 Colt dies and fire forming 45s out of em. I still am. Blow-By in .45 rifles, or actually any of the straight walled cases is a real PITA. Switching to 44-40-45s resulted in really clean Carrier Blocks and Actions. I had a real problem with my 44 Special '66 Trapper. Chamber so bad it refused to run with BP or Subs. Would foul out the chamber in 3 - 5 rounds. Tried every cure I could think of. Actually wrote the rifle off and stuffed it inna safe and was gonna sell it off as a "Smokeless Only" (Gag, Puke).
Then I ran into OD#3 right here in River City. I had always considered annealing something lunatic fringe bench resters did for sport. No applicability to what we do ...... right?? Wrong. OD#3 shamed me into annealing straight walled cases. The experiment was first applied to the "write off" 44 Special. I annealed about 100 44 Russian cases (close proximity to 44 Henry Flat) and headed for a CAS match (Never, ever, test at an empty range first). WOWZERS. The rite off 44 Trapper ran like gangbusters. Occasional sticky extraction from an over-annealed case, but whom care'd. It RAN!!! So I became an annealing fool and now anneal ALL my 45 Rifle ammo (not pistol) which includes 44 Russian, 45 Schofield and C45S.
SO:: What does all this have to do with cleaning a Henry, you might ask. Well .... go ahead ..... ask. When the Carrier Block of a Toggle Link rifle fouls, the only way to get it really clean is to pull it out of the gun. When running annealed cases thru my Toggle rifles, I find the need to pull the carrier block is greatly reduced. Reduced to "once in a while" and I just hit the carrier with a drop or two of oil. My cleaning routine for my Toggle rifles is to chamber a fired case, squirt the bore with PAM, run a wet patch or two thru, run dry patch, run oil patch and wipe down w/oil rag .... DONE.
For those whom have been fighting Blow-By in straight walled cases, anneal them suckers and be done with Blow-By. 45 rifles that will run as clean or cleaner than a 44-40.