#HenryBigBoy

The Henry Big Boy lever action rifle is a model that has deservedly gained a pretty positive reputation for not just being reliable, accurate, and durable, but also just plain fun to shoot. Henry makes these classic lever actions available in nearly all of the common straight-walled cartridges ranging from .357 Magnum all the way up to .44 Magnum. What is perhaps best about the Henry Big Boy series of lever guns is simply their value. Most of these lever guns can be had for about $900 or less and you’re getting an amazing combination of quality construction and reliability in a proven platform. However, these lever actions are quite limited when it comes to one thing – optics. Other more modern lever guns have started to incorporate integrated or factory-installed Picatinny rails for use with riflescopes, red dots, and sometimes even Laser IR devices for night vision hunting. Luckily, XS Sights sells a great DIY solution for replacing the factory iron sights on a Herny Big Boy rifle. Their functional and sleek-looking Lever Rail and Ghost Ring sights still preserve iron sight capability while adding some much-needed versatility to a dated platform.

We have been publishing the Photo Of The Day for years. Our focus is on firearms, sometimes a new product, a classic or a weapon in the hands of soldiers or sport shooters. Sometimes the pictures work just like pieces of art, like the one above. The star here is the Henry Big Boy in .30-30, and I’m thinking about tranquility, the sun, the wind and open spaces, about camping and lodging far away from the city. Do you get the same feeling?

UPDATE: The guns were won by Karl (Big Boy rifle) and Dustin (AR-7). Congrats guys.

The first time I heard of a Henry rifle was on a Louis L’amour book on tape probably 25 years ago, while my family and I were on a road trip. A character in the book was meting out frontier justice on whomever. The imagery of circled wagons defended by lever-action Henrys will forever be in my mind. Henry began making lever-action rifles in 1860, when they were first patented by Benjamin Tyler Henry. There is an infamous pic from the Civil War showing a group of Union cavalrymen posing with their Henry rifles, shown below. The story of the Henry rifle is the stuff of legend and is inseparably connected with American history. Henrys found themselves on both sides of the Civil War and both sides of the Indian Wars.