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SCATTERGUN ALLEY: YOU MIGHT WANT TO GET THE GATE – THE SIDE GATE, THAT IS
SCATTERGUN ALLEY
The new Henry Side Gate Lever-Action .410 can trace its history back to the 1880s and the famed repeater from Winchester, which asked gunmaker John Moses Browning to engineer a lever-action shotgun version.
YOU MIGHT WANT TO GET THE GATE
Henry’s new Side Gate Lever-Action .410 is ‘no novelty,’ says our shotgun expert. Rather, a ‘very serviceable gun for hunting, self-defense, and dealing with home and garden pests.’
STORY AND PHOTOS BY LARRY CASE
I’m not sure any firearm is more fun to shoot than a lever-action. Describing why they are is hard, but it’s still true. If you grew up watching any westerns (The Rifleman), you can’t help yourself: When you start pulling the trigger and working the lever, you are transported to a box canyon mixing it up with the bad guys.
Henry Repeating Arms has been making lever-action rifles since 1860, when their founder Benjamin Henry started the dynasty. These days, Henry (henryusa.com) makes a wide array of lever-action rifles, but they haven’t exactly been known for lever-action shotguns – until now.
LEVER GUN HISTORY The whole lever-action shotgun thing started back in 1885. The story goes that Winchester encouraged the esteemed gun inventor John Moses Browning to come up with a repeater shotgun with a lever action. Shotgun history lore tells us that Browning didn’t want to go the lever-action route, but instead wanted to design a pump gun. Winchester, we are told, held fast to the lever-action design, as that was what they were famous for in their classic lever rifles. Browning obeyed and the Winchester 1887 lever-action shotgun was born.
Prior to the Winchester 1887,
The Side Gate is deeply blued, with a dark straightgrained walnut stock and forearm, fore and aft checkering, thick rubber recoil pad and six-shell capacity. double-barreled shotguns were the only choice, so Browning’s brainchild was the cat’s meow for a time. This new lever-action had 5+1 loading capability but was not the easiest to load. Having no side gate, the shooter had to open the rolling block action and load through the receiver. The shotgun had a curiously small hammer, which was sometimes hard to grasp and cock the gun. The 1887, followed by the 1901 model, held on for a few years, but was replaced when Browning got his way and Winchester introduced the model 1897 pump gun.
The lever-action shotgun wasn’t heard from for a while. Winchester fiddled with a lever .410 in the early 1990s, Marlin offered one 19 years later, and Henry, the iconic lever-action rifle company, came along about 10 years after that with their own version of the lever-action shotgun.
The .410 bore (it is actually a caliber, not a gauge), somewhat like the leveraction shotgun, was a sleeper for many years but has come back into the limelight recently. Not only a popular choice for young shooters, subgauges like the .410 have gained popularity with adult shooters who may just be tired of getting hammered by magnum 12-gauge loads.
NOT JUST A KID’S GUN The Henry Side Gate Lever-Action .410 is a substantial piece of machinery. This is not a toy or what some people might think of as just a “kid’s gun.” While the lever-action shotgun may be thought of as something of a novelty, this shotgun falls into the category of a very serviceable gun for hunting, selfdefense, and dealing with home and garden pests. It is definitely in the realm of a “truck gun.” More on this later.
Based on Henry’s blued steelframed .45-70 lever action, these smoothbores are chambered for 2.5inch shells only to enable rapid cycling with short-throw levers. This shotgun is deeply blued, with dark straightgrained American walnut furniture, pistol grip wrists, checkering fore and
aft, sling swivel studs, and a thick nonslip ventilated black rubber recoil pad.
Two versions are offered, the fulllength and the compact. The longer H018G-410 comes with a blued 24-inch round barrel that’s factory-threaded for Invector-style chokes. A full choke tube is supplied, and additional options are available from the Henry store, including a Turkey TSS choke. The high-visibility front brass bead will serve for wing-shooting clays and birds alike. The long barrel makes for a slightly milder report and stretches the effectiveness of .410 shotshells to the max. Henry .410 lever-action shotguns now feature side loading gates for topping off the magazine while in action. The six-shot tube magazines can also be loaded through the front of the tube and unloaded rapidly without having to cycle shotshells through the action. If hunting would be the primary job for this shotgun, I would buy this model with the longer barrel and the screw-in chokes.
The H018G-410R model is a more compact configuration with a 20-inch round cylinder bore barrel, good for brush hunting with birdshot, defense with buckshot, or deer hunting with slugs. The semi-buckhorn rear sight, adjustable for windage and elevation, combined with brass bead front post sights, make for very accurate shooting. A little lighter than its 24inch counterpart, this shotgun is easier to carry in the field or handle in tight quarters. The adjustable sights enable altering the patterns of any shot load and points of impact of any slugs. This firearm lets you handle small game like rabbits or birds for the pot, and varmints like fox, coyotes and pest rodents at moderate ranges. If I knew I was going to shoot a lot of slugs, I would be choosing this, the shorter-barreled model with the adjustable sights.
“A couple of trips to the squirrel woods produced good results,” reports author Larry Case, “with the Henry and the 2½-inch loads knocking squirrels out of some tall oak trees.” Other critters he’d use the shotgun on include turkeys and smaller varmints.
BURNING POWDER WITH THE HENRY The Henry Lever-Action shotgun was fired extensively on the range and in the field. The first thing I needed to establish for my own peace of mind was that the firearm would go bang every time I pulled the trigger (Case’s Firearm Theorem No. 2) and would function the rounds effectively, as in ejecting spent hulls and loading the next shell.
Shotgun shells tend to load, feed and otherwise function in a firearm’s action differently than rifle cartridges. Rifle rounds are all metallic, usually more pointed than blunt, and are smoother than shotshells, so they
The Side Gate comes in compact (19.75inch barrel) and full-length (24-inch barrel) models that weigh 7.33 and 7.54 pounds, respectively.
(HENRY) tend to ride through a gun’s action smoothly. Shotgun shells are often thicker (even .410), are blunt on the end, and though we don’t deal in paper shells now, today’s plastic shotshells will drag in a gun’s action more so than a smooth metallic cartridge.
For all of these reasons I was curious as to how the Henry LeverAction would function and I was not disappointed. Several rounds of fully loading (5+1) and firing the gun had no glitches; the little .410 fed and ate the Remington and Winchester loads with no problems. I was also pleasantly surprised on the patterning board. Even though 2½-inch .410 loads only hold about 112 No. 6 shot pellets, on turkey patterning targets at 30 yards, the Henry delivered what I thought were respectable patterns. I would have no problem drawing down on a big gobbler at that range. A couple of trips to the squirrel woods produced good results as well, with the Henry and the 2½-inch loads knocking squirrels out of some tall oak trees.
A GREAT LITTLE TRUCK GUN There has been much talk in recent years of what exactly makes a “truck gun.” In my not so humble opinion, a truck gun is one you would carry in the truck most of the time and one that can be applied to many different jobs. In some locales it may be getting less popular to talk about shooting snakes, but that would be one job for the truck gun, with garden pests like crows, woodchucks, rats and maybe starlings as well.
The Henry Lever-Action also serves as a home-defense weapon and can be loaded with a variety of ammo such as birdshot, .410 slugs, or designated home-defense loads like the Winchester PDX1 .410 Defender load. This shell fires four plated defense discs and 16 plated BB-sized pellets, devastating to any intruder at close home-defense ranges. The Henry Lever-Action also comes drilled and tapped to accept a Weaver 63B-style scope base.
The Henry Side Gate Lever-Action .410 shotgun is a handsome, well-puttogether firearm that operated with no problems on the range or in the field. I like the rugged construction, and the fit and finish of the wood to metal is excellent. The Henry functioned very well with various brands of ammo; it loaded, fired and ejected with no problems.
I can’t finish up without telling you this: The Henry Side Gate Lever-Action .410 shotgun is just plain ol’ fun to shoot. Shooting and hunting are supposed to be fun, remember? Editor’s note: Larry Case has been a devoted outdoorsman since he was a child. He will admit to an addiction to turkey hunting (spring and fall), but refuses any treatment. He enjoys the company of gobblers and cur dogs that are loud and people who speak the truth softly. Case served 36 years as a game warden in West Virginia and retired with the rank of district captain. You can check out his podcast and other stories at gunsandcornbred.com.
SPECIFICATIONS (FULL-LENGTH)
Action type: Lever-action shotgun Caliber: .410 bore Chamber size: 2½ inches Capacity: 6 rounds MSRP: $1,012 Barrel length: 24 inches Barrel type: Round blued steel Overall length: 42.75 inches Weight: 7.54 pounds Receiver finish: Blued steel Rear sight: None Front sight: Brass bead Scope capabilities: Drilled and tapped Scope mount type: Weaver 63B Stock material: American walnut Butt plate/pad: Black ventilated rubber recoil pad Length of pull: 14 inches Safety: Transfer bar Best uses: Target, hunting, bird shot Embellishments/extras: Internally threaded for Invector-style chokes (full included). Swivel studs, side gate, 2½-inch shells only.
REVOLUTIONARY NEW 2-PIECE NAS3 CASE TECHNOLOGY: 50% LIGHTER THAN BRASS
Coated Aluminum Base • Less wear on ejector pin • Can be color coded for ID/branding High Tensile Nickel-Alloy Cylinder
• 2 x pressure rating (over 70k PSI) • Higher tensile strength and elasticity • Corrosion resistant • Reloadable using S3 Reload dies
