Henry ar-7 review

43795 Views 53 Replies 31 Participants Last post by wldrbob, Mar 2, 2013

shadow61

Discussion Starter · Oct 16, 2010

4

As promised i took my new henry ar-7 out for some range time today. I promised i'd do a review and here it comes..... First of all i'd like to say that whatever henry did to rework this new version of the rifle, they did a good jo at it. It is amazingly accurate for an out of the box survival rifle. I tested the rifle with several types of ammo, Remington thunderbolts, winchester wildcats, remington golden bullets, CCI blazer, and CCI subsonic. The rifle hated the wildcats, it wouldn't even feed them, the remington and CCI ammo worked best, The CCI subsonic fired great and had a great group but it wouldn't eject all the rounds (it would stovepipe), but it was expected because it says to use high velocity rounds. i took pics of the groups i shot offhand at 25 yds, and each type of ammo is listed on the target. The front sight is a little off in the first couple of targets, but the grouping is consistent, after a quick tap on the front sight all was fine. If i could reccomend one thing to henry to do to make the rifle better is...Give it a steel front sight instead of plastic and make it screw adjustable. here are some of the pics of the targets...

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shadow61

Discussion Starter · #2 · Oct 16, 2010

2

sorry i am having trouble getting pics to load here are a couple more. And i would like to say i give this rifle an excellent review. It is a great rifle for the money and shoots well enough to keep you alive if you need it. Two thumbs up !!! :thumb: :thumb:

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shadow61

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 16, 2010

2

more pics ....

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voyuer1

· #4 · Oct 16, 2010

Overall well worth the money? How solidly are the components held in place inside the stock?

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WSierra

· #5 · Oct 16, 2010

Thanks! Nice photos and information!

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shadow61

Discussion Starter · #6 · Oct 16, 2010

voyuer1 said:
Overall well worth the money? How solidly are the components held in place inside the stock?

they are held in great, no rattles, and WELL worth the money.

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trixie

· #7 · Oct 16, 2010

looks like at 25 yards you'd have a 25% chance of hitting a squirrel. lol kidding.

can you check your owners manual and tell us if it still says NOT to use hyper velocity rounds? the last generation did.

shadow61

Discussion Starter · #8 · Oct 16, 2010

only thing it says is use high velocity ammo and 22 long rifle only

trixie

· #9 · Oct 17, 2010

shadow61 said:
only thing it says is use high velocity ammo and 22 long rifle only

a lot of people will say to use stingers in ar-7's cuz they cycle well, but the hyper velocity rounds are bad for the thin barrel, and probly the action too.

shadow61

Discussion Starter · #10 · Oct 17, 2010

trixie said:
a lot of people will say to use stingers in ar-7's cuz they cycle well, but the hyper velocity rounds are bad for the thin barrel, and probly the action too.

i'm not real familiar with the older versions of this rifle that were made by armalite or charter arms, but the barrel on this one is about as thick as a 10/22 barrel on my ruger. I shot about 100rds trhough it as fast as i could and the barrel never got real hot. I know henry made some changes / improvements on the rifle, but i'm not sure exactly what other than the whole reciever and barrel is teflon coated

Gronk

· #11 · Oct 17, 2010

Given that the target states the numbers represent the distance in inches from the center, it looks like the best group is about 16 moa.
(1/4" = 1moa @ 75 meters -yes that's 82 ft, not 75 ft but close enough)

Which leads me to believe I wouldn't want to depend on this rifle for taking small game at distances over 50 ft as the groups open up too much.

NOT being critical of your marksmanship, but other than its "packed size" this rifle has little advantage over say, a Ruger MKIII or 22/45, especially if you add a 2X scope.

They do make fun plinkers though.

shadow61

Discussion Starter · #12 · Oct 17, 2010

i may go run another set of tests using a site vise to eliminate the human accuracy issue. as stated this test was done standing offhand, and being it was the first time i shot the rifle i had to get used to the trigger etc. Mabey the groups can improve by taking the shake out. My main intention with the test was to see which ammo it liked best. i have heard so many people bash this gun cause either they have just heard it was bad or they had shot the older versions. Take the info for what its worth but now you have picture proof of the groups it shoots. I would be happy with it if i was stuck in the woods in a survival situation, and remember, its not made for everyday use like a ruger 10/22 or some other rifle its a survival rifle.

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trixie

· #13 · Oct 17, 2010

shadow61 said:
i'm not real familiar with the older versions of this rifle that were made by armalite or charter arms, but the barrel on this one is about as thick as a 10/22 barrel on my ruger. I shot about 100rds trhough it as fast as i could and the barrel never got real hot. I know henry made some changes / improvements on the rifle, but i'm not sure exactly what other than the whole reciever and barrel is teflon coated

check again amigo, the barrel is extremely thin, and surrounded by plastic to give the appearence of normal size. unless they changed that, i had the last generation of henry surv. rifle before yours.

its fine for anything but HYPER rounds.

also, you can flip your peep sight over and have a smaller hole = better accuracy.

shadow61

Discussion Starter · #14 · Oct 17, 2010

amigo you should look at a new one before commenting. the new ones don't even have a flip over sight, just one peep hole that is adjustable up and down, and the barrel on mine is almost as thick as my ruger 10/22. This may be some of the changes that were made

trixie

· #15 · Oct 17, 2010

shadow61 said:
amigo you should look at a new one before commenting. the new ones don't even have a flip over sight, just one peep hole that is adjustable up and down, and the barrel on mine is almost as thick as my ruger 10/22. This may be some of the changes that were made

not a flip sight, your rear peep sight, is held by a screw, unscrew it and flip it over for a smaller sight picture.

with your barrel off the gun. look at it, you will see that there are 2 layers, a metal barrel wrapped in plastic.

2DOGS

· #16 · Oct 18, 2010

Hey shadow61...first let me say Thanks for taking the time to test your rifle and then for posting the results. I am really glad to hear that you are pleased with your Henry version of the AR-7. I supppose that puts you and I in the minority since I am very well pleased with my ancient Charter Arms AR-7 which I have had since April 23rd, 1982 and cost $101.92. I have fired thousands of .22s through mine and it only malfunctions if I try to use cheap junk ammo in it. I now only use CCI mini-mags in it and it functions flawlessly. I do keep a couple of spare magazines as the feed lips on them will eventually wear out and cause trouble. I too tried several different types of ammo and posted the results a while back. My tests were at 35 yards from a rest. The accuracy was a little better than what you posted but then again you were shooting offhand. Glad to hear some positive remarks about a fine survival type firearm. SEMPER FI

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sarge912

· #17 · Oct 18, 2010

My manual has no prohibition for hyper velocity rounds. When I spoke with one of the techs (not customer service but a real armorer) He said that they have not had any issues with folks using Mini-Mags or Stingers and it does not void the warranty as I have seen suggested in other threads.
I would like to try out the new mags in mine. They are supposed to be backward compatible with my generation. My peep also flips and I like the smaller aperture much better.

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matt18920

· #18 · Oct 18, 2010

i have always wanted one of those for the cool factor, but i already have another rifle that fits that purpose for me

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patcash

· #19 · Oct 21, 2010

http://ar-7.com sells a heavy barrel, collapsible stock and cantilever scope mount for $129 that will cure a lot of AR-7 accuracy problems. The factory barrel in this photo shoots about 6 in groups at 50 yd with open sights. The heavy barrel and 2-7x scope shoots .6 in groups at 50 yd and 2.5 in groups at 100 yd with Winchester 40gr Power Point hollow points...without jamming. Since the scope is mounted on the barrel, it returns to zero after you reassemble the rifle.

The bad news is that the heavy barrel adds 2.7 lb and the scope adds another 1.2 lb and with scope is 22 inches long. The receiver with collapsible stock and factory barrel fit into a 10x13 in laptop bag. The heavy barrel fits more tightly into the receiver and takes a few more seconds to install.

The rifle won't reliably cycle subsonic ammo like CCI Green Tag, CCI Standard Velocity, Rem Subsonic or Winchester Subsonic even though it shoots them fairly accurately. CCI Velocitors and Stingers function reliably, but I think Charter recommends against their use.

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pilote

· #20 · Oct 21, 2010

patcash said:
http://ar-7.com sells a heavy barrel, collapsible stock and cantilever scope mount for $129 that will cure a lot of AR-7 accuracy problems. The factory barrel in this photo shoots about 6 in groups at 50 yd with open sights. The heavy barrel and 2-7x scope shoots .6 in groups at 50 yd and 2.5 in groups at 100 yd with Winchester 40gr Power Point hollow points...without jamming. Since the scope is mounted on the barrel, it returns to zero after you reassemble the rifle.

The bad news is that the heavy barrel adds 2.7 lb and the scope adds another 1.2 lb and with scope is 22 inches long. The receiver with collapsible stock and factory barrel fit into a 10x13 in laptop bag. The heavy barrel fits more tightly into the receiver and takes a few more seconds to install.

The rifle won't reliably cycle subsonic ammo like CCI Green Tag, CCI Standard Velocity, Rem Subsonic or Winchester Subsonic even though it shoots them fairly accurately. CCI Velocitors and Stingers function reliably, but I think Charter recommends against their use.

has anyone ordered from that site lately...have heard rumblings it's not the most reliable...please correct me if i'm in error...i'd like to order a case from them if they're moving product...

...and Henry doesn't have a restriction on using cci velocitor and stingers...i use them often and they're fine; guessing over 1k rounds and no issues with the barrel (i check/clean it often)...

don't know and don't care about the old charter arms version; they had lots of barrel issues...this is about the Henry version.

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