Huntsman question

[Buckshot Bill]

Does anyone know if H&R huntsman barrel will interchange onto SB1/SB2 recievers?

[Tatume]

I believe the Huntsman was built on an SB1 receiver. Be careful with the Huntsman barrel; they were made with two different types of breech plugs. One was threaded and the other was a slip fit. The slip fit plug is considered risky.

[John Taylor]

The firing pin on the huntsman is quite a bit bigger for the percussion cap. A standard firing pin may not work with a primer. Many years back I made several to take 209 primers.

[Whiterabbit]

SB1 is OK for the huntsman. I used one for awhile, complete with 150 grains of BP as per factory recommendation. Lots of recoil, that one. Matched the power of a 460 S&W easy though. (in a 26 inch barrel...)

Half my 209 primer carriers blew on the second shot..... the other half blew on the first shot. Those plastic thing are useless. (just to be clear, they would blow no matter what the barrel charge....)

I turned a brass 209 carrier and used that for a dozen shots. Then I started using cut down WSM brass which fits the breech plug perfectly. Have a pile of LRM primers and they ignited perfectly. Made 30 some odd carriers, and when it was time to sell the barrel, the carriers went with the barrel. Worked nice.

120 grains and under was more manageable.

Anyway, mine was on a large firing pin model and never had an issue with large primers or 209 primers. Ever. smalls now.... well....

[tacklebury]

Huntsman frames are slightly different in that they have a very large firing pin. At least the original ones for percussion caps did. My finding is that on a normal frame, the small pin doesn't do a good job igniting a percussion cap. I actually use cut off ends from 300 WSM cases and large rifle primers for my 50 cal huntsman. That lets me shoot it on a rifle frame fine. They work much better than the plastic carriers. If you really want to use 209 primers for some reason, you can buy an after market breech plug for it.

[Whiterabbit]

mine is a large firing pin version (started life as an ultralight USH 20), no issues with 209's or LRM's. Those plastic carriers were junk.

I made my own brass carrier too, it was easy enough. Just some .75" brass (I think it was .75") turned just shy of the breech plug OD, a step down machined to fit inside the plug easily, easily shy of total depth, and drilled to clear a 209. Sized so the gun closes.

But you need to take a punch with you to the range to remove the 209 from that. And maybe a 7mm bore brush to scrape it every 20-30 rounds. the wsm carriers worked much better.

[Whiterabbit]

actually, found a great pic





I made 2 of them. and 30 or so wsm carriers.

[leadman]

I have a 58 cal Huntsman I bought new in the mid 1970s and another I bought about 15 to 20 years ago used. First one has the slip in breech plug and has given no problems. When people ground on the barrel lug so the breech plug could be pushed out without taking the barrel off the receiver, this gave issues. As original the breech plug has no way to slip out unintended. The second one has the screw in plug that I have never been able to get out.
I would not try a 150gr charge in one of the original Huntsmans. I lost the manual but IIRC max charge for the 58 was less than 100grs of 2F. I use 90grs and it works well. With the round ball it shot clear thru an elk at 80 yards.