H&R Handi-rifle

[DPris]

It's the Ruger American & the Savage Axis that killed off the Handi-Rifle.

As mentioned above, pricing is low & accuracy is high on those, eliminating any budgetary reason to go with a single-shot for too many people.

The Handi couldn't compete, H&R couldn't make enough profit to keep the guns going.
Denis

[Sure Shot Mc Gee]

Discontinued/ no longer made. No factory ordered small parts availability.

IMHO: A weapons manufacture no longer able to compete in today's market place due to their products obsolescent design.

As of February 27th 2015. Good bye good luck. Rest in Peace H&R/NEF.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%26R_Firearms

[DPris]

Dropped at the end of December.
Denis

[scottycoyote]

ive played with a few handi's, they can be hit or miss. There are some diy things you can do to them to help the accuracy....like put a rubber washer between the barrel and the foregrip to float the barrel, that did seem to help the accuracy on a 308 i had.

in the end i sold off my handi's, im pretty picky about my triggers and none of the ones i owned had one i could live with...especially with so many really good lower end bolt action rifles coming out these days with adj triggers like the savage, etc. I got a deal on a ruger american and never looked back, much better gun imo for almost the same money

[ligonierbill]

I inherited one from my brother a few years ago. He had barrels in .243, 30-30, and .44 Mag. Guess he couldn't decide which to shoot at deer, and solved that by buying 3. I am told there are some tricks, like taking a bit off the forearm to minimize contact and shimming the screw, that will improve accuracy. I haven't bothered, but I sold the .243 bbl to a guy that knew how to work them. He was confident he could get 1 1/2" or better at 100. My brother killed a doe with the .44 bbl, and it certainly did the job. I run mainly the .44 bbl, as we are now allowed pistol caliber rifles for deer on OH - IO. A max load of H110 under a 240 Hornady XTP goes over 1,800, and it puts them in anywhere from 1 1/2" to 3" at 100 depending on the phase of the moon. Trigger is not awful. Brush gun? That's what I'd recommend. Good to 150 yd, in my opinion. Second choice is the 30-30.

PS: The Ruger American has been mentioned. I got one in .243, and it's a lot of rifle for the money. Might be a better choice than the old HR.

[FrankenMauser]

Two, nearly three year old thread.

[Ibmikey]

Franken, Maybe the initial post was several years ago but there are enough current responses to revive it, particularly now that H&R is defunct and those of us who have one now can share info as the factory is no longer interested. Through the years i have had several in .223 ( they definitely are .223 and not 5.56) and still have one in 45/70 and 300 Blackout which are proven Texas hog killers. So anyway i am saddened at the attitude of the outfit that hhas purchased so many companies and then closed their doors and eliminate competition.

[DPris]

It wasn't an attitude, it was a practical business reality.
They made the guns as cheap as they could toward the end & still just could not make a profit on 'em.
Denis

[FrankenMauser]

Franken, Maybe the initial post was several years ago but there are enough current responses to revive it, particularly now that H&R is defunct and those of us who have one now can share info as the factory is no longer interested. Through the years i have had several in .223 ( they definitely are .223 and not 5.56) and still have one in 45/70 and 300 Blackout which are proven Texas hog killers.

H&R is not defunct.
Only the single-shot line was discontinued.

There are better ways to discuss the rifles - generally a new thread with a title indicating the intended discussion being the best option.


I, too, own a Handi-Rifle. It has one elk (using my own swaged bullet) and quite a few birds (using home brew shot shells) under its belt. I plan to keep it until it wears out.
But, it's still a low grade rifle, built by an ailing company under the direction of a greedy conglomerate. -It's a Remlin.
Fit and finish suck. Quality is unimpressive. Durability is questionable (too many plastic parts). And my stocks were finished with a WATER BASED 'sealer'. Water based!!

[DPris]

Water! Water, I tell you! Water!!!!!
( )
Denis

[Ibmikey]

Well it is obvious objectivity is not included in some of the responses so perhaps it is time to shut down the thread. My "low grade rifle" is still a lot of fun to shoot and take "high grade" Texas hogs with and i am quite sure it will out last my dwindling days on Earth. Bye!

[Mosin-Marauder]

I would have liked my 300 BLK Handi but the lack of iron sights and the lack of affordable low powered optics that work (4x etc) made it an overly "cumbersome" (I guess, the presence of scope made it look weird and handle oddly, plus the hammer spur was difficult to manipulate with a scope) rifle for how short and light it was. If it has a nice peep sight or a good set of leaf sights it would have been perfect. Trying to find someone to sell it to, now.

[FrankenMauser]

Originally Posted by Ibmikey

Well it is obvious objectivity is not included in some of the responses so perhaps it is time to shut down the thread. My "low grade rifle" is still a lot of fun to shoot and take "high grade" Texas hogs with and i am quite sure it will out last my dwindling days on Earth. Bye!

I didn't say yours was low grade.
I said mine was low grade.

Some older H&Rs and NEFs were/are very nice, and well built long guns. There are several that I'd really like to obtain.

The recent (post-buyout) examples, however....
I was not surprised to see them go. It doesn't upset me, either.
The product quality was getting lower and lower, and no longer worth the investment. Honestly, I'm surprised that H&R/Remington/Freedom Group didn't kill the model line in 2010, when CVA took a big bite out of the Handi-Rifle sales (with a comparable rifle, but superior barrel and build quality, and lower price).

[DPris]

They made the Handi progressively cheaper & cheaper toward the end, to keep pricing down & competitive with the boltguns mentioned.
They decided they couldn't cheapen it any further, and at that point pulled the plug.
Denis

[zach_]

FYI, there were a couple of used single shot rifles of some flavor at Cabelas in Allen on Thursday. They both had rails without sights. I couldn't read the writing on the guns. I had left my prescription shades on and decided to take them off rather than look like an idiot wearing sunglasses inside.

[jaysouth]

I have several Handi/toppers and enjoy tinkering with them. However, I got a CVA Hunter in .35 Rem last year.

There is really no comparison. The CVA was under $200, has a better trigger than my D&T arms handi trigger job that cost $125, has free deadnutz scope base and rings, and a hammer extension thrown in for free.

The CVA, out of the box, is more accurate than the Handi, has a nice sythetic stock made for scopes with an ambidextrous cheekpiece. Workmanship and materials appear superior to the Handi.

CVA is not the best company to deal with, especially if you are trying to find a particular gun, but they beat remington/H&R hands down.

Forget the Handi if you can get a CVA.

(don't even consider the Rossi single)

[johnwilliamson062]

At their price point it is hard to go wrong as long as it fires. I would get a light recoiling cartridge. They are light rifles.

[FrankenMauser]

At their price point it is hard to go wrong as long as it fires.

That's exactly why their reputation has suffered over the last decade, along with H&R's poor handling of the situation.

The .35 Whelen models had headspace issues and 30-40% wouldn't fire reliably. Up to 10% wouldn't fire at all. H&R blamed Remington (most people were using Remington ammo). Remington blamed H&R. Finally, H&R ran a boat load of new barrels, and started replacing barrels for customers.

For about two years, the .223 Rem models (16" 'youth' model barrels in particular) had hit-and-miss headspace issues that caused light strikes and failures-to-fire. H&R blamed cheap import ammo. Customers balked, saying that ALL ammunition did it. Finally, after many headaches for owners, H&R repeated the .35 Whelen - they ran a bunch of barrels and started replacing them for customers.

Rinse and repeat the above for .30-30 barrels and .22-250 barrels.

Add a chambering that tore the rifles apart when used with full-power factory ammo (.500 S&W Magnum).

And for at least three years, nearly every centerfire chambering had issues with extractors slipping right over the cartridge rim. As usual, H&R blamed customers for improper maintenance and the use of cheap ammo. Customers disagreed, and really never got anywhere unless they sent the rifle in for some other repair (or 'accessory' barrel) and added the extraction issue as secondary.


----

There is absolutely no reason to defend H&R for their steady cheapening of the product or repair service. Doing so is like arguing in favor of saving an automotive manufacturer that built such terrible cars that they were facing bankruptcy because the people saw the light and didn't want those lemons any more.
The only 'good' thing that they did was killing the now-sub-standard product line before it ruined the whole brand.

[Cheapshooter]

Mine is not your average, every day Handi Rifle. Chambered in 500 S&W, and topped with a Bushnell Trophy XLT Circle-X Reticle 1.75-4X Shotgun Scope on high, sight through rings.
I just can't get consistant accuracy out of it. I'm thinking it's the setup, and when I get time I will take everything off, and start with the factory open sights. But right now I might get two rounds to hold together pretty decent, and close to POA @ 100 yards, but the third round could go anywhere. Target frame, shot up my Caldwell Ultimate!:eek. Next target. Or not found at all!
500 S&W is a bit pricey to experiment with, and I don't know if the problem is the gun, the setup, or me. But before I violate my 1st rule with this one I'm gonna put it on a lead sled, factory sights, @ 50 yds to see if I have something to work with.

[FITASC]

Mine is in .223 - accuracy is meh, recoil is more than other .223s

[FrankenMauser]

Cheapshooter, when I bought my .444 Marlin Handi-Rifle, it was a toss-up between .444 Marlin and the newly-introduced (to the Handi) .500 S&W.
The deciding factor was that .500 S&W was actually cheaper (theoretically) to reload after the first firing or brass purchase.
So, I shopped around, researched on my own, and came up with nothing. All .500 S&W Handis had sold out, and no dealer or distributor could get one for me.

.444 Marlin it was. ...And while I was trying to get my hands on the ever-elusive .444 Marlin brass, I started seeing the reports from .500 S&W owners about the Handis beating the crap out of themselves, and outright breaking - some after just 100-150 rounds.
It was a good idea, and an idea that would sell (and did). But the frame just can't take it. Some guys have been lucky, and have managed to put many hundreds of rounds through theirs without noticing any problems. But enough people have had issues with the .500 S&W barrels that I don't want to mess with it.

The H&R forum over at MarlinOwners, and the H&R 'rifle' forum over at GreyBeardOutdoors have dozens and dozens of discussions about .500 S&W headaches, should you ever want to waste a day on the internet and get depressed about something you own.

If you can get yours to shoot, I'd say keep it. But if it's giving you trouble, there's an alternative to breaking rule number one: Buy (or trade for) a used barrel or three. That way you don't have to sell the actual 'firearm', but you can get yourself into something different.



----
For the record, I've broken rule #1 .... let's see ... umm ... one, two ... plus the pieces of crap ... three, four ... oh, and the .38 Special. Yea, at least five times, just this year. I hate selling firearms, but four of those that I sold just weren't working for me. It was better to turn them into something that I liked, than hang on to them for no good reason.

One of them, though, I do wish I could have kept. But, at the time, I had to pay for a limited production Kimber that appears to be #17 of a 630-unit limited edition. It has been in my family since it was new, my brother needed some cash, and I needed to make the transaction happen very quickly without pulling more than $500 from savings. For the smoothest, sexiest 1911 I've ever had my hands on, it was worth 'ditching' that Ruger P94 (that I'd only had for 2 weeks! ). At the very least, I did get a good price for it.
I wish I still had the P94, but it was worth it to make sure that Kimber stayed in the hands of someone that would appreciate how sweet it is.

[Catfishman]

I really like my .308, it's "handy". It's a short gun with a normal barrel length.

I had a 30-06 with a muzzle break. The one and only time I fired it without hearing protection, I dropped rifle. My ears rang for days, weeks maybe.

[DPris]

I've had mixed results with H&R.
Could not get a .38-55 to work with lead & could not get the H&R people to understand it. "But, nobody will shoot lead through those, they're a HUNTING rifle!"
Finally just had them re-barrel in .30-30 & sold it.

Could not get a .45-70 to shoot with a number of lead handloads.
Sold it.

Had good luck with a synthetic .22LR Sportster, after having my gunsmith re-engineer the trigger. Still have it, shoots great.
Bought a 20-gauge as a gift to a nephew, the hinge had to be relieved, he could barely get it open.
Once addressed, nice little shotgun.
Denis

[Old Stony]

On one of Ibmikey's trips to Texas, he left me with one in 45/70 with nice open sights on it. I have shot it some, and handles the lighter loads I prefer through it nicely. I have shot both jacketed and lead with no problems and accuracy is acceptable.
I hate to see any serviceable firearm bite the dust, but who knows..maybe they will become sought after in future years like some other brands have.

[Cheapshooter]

FrankenMauser, after reading some of the reports of problems with the 500 Handi I decided if I can get it to shoot somewhere close, I would get dies, and a mold, and handload a bit lighter cast bullet loads. I can reduce the punishment on the gun a bit, and still have a fun "big bore" shooter, and possibly a short range, hard hitting deer gun.
The frame doesn't appear to be stretched, the barrel locks up tight. No obvious indications on the brass. I just don't want to bother getting 500 S&W dies if I can't get it to at least put some kind of group together.
On the addotional barrels, I have heard they are down to what's in stock on new onew. Also, it appears they aren't like T/C Contender, or Encore barrels. They say you need to send your frame for them to "fit" another barrel.