Review: Henry AR-7 Survival Rifle

The Henry AR-7 is a purpose made survival rifle, one of several such rifles in production. Based on a military design, it is an interesting and unique firearm. Does it get the job done? Is it a good choice for a survival rifle? Let’s find out.

The gun is chambered in .22LR.

The gun has an interesting history, but rather than re-inventing the wheel I will just post a link to the Wiki for the gun and you can read it there:

AR-7 Wiki (clicky)

The AR-7 has been around since 1959, and there have been several variants. This review ONLY covers the Henry variant with Henry factory 8 round magazines.

Henry AR-7 Philosophy Of Use:

The gun is purpose designed as a survival rifle. If dropped in water, the rifle floats. It is coated with Teflon, and it folds up into a relatively compact, lightweight package.

This was originally conceived for only one use, as a survival gun for killing small game and as emergency self defense. As such, it’s much more limited in scope and perceived usefulness than a “crossover” gun, a gun that fills multiple niches, like the 10/22 take down.

The Henry AR-7 can be used as a “truck gun”, a gun to keep on hand packed away under the seat or stowed in a storage compartment. It’s also a great option for a Bug Out Bag (BOB) or Get Home Bag (GHB). Mine lives in my GHB along with 100 rounds of mini-mags.

Henry AR-7 Design:

The Henry is a direct descendant of the ArmaLite AR-7 designed by Eugene Stoner. It features a modular assembly of a hollow plastic stock, a receiver, a removable barrel and magazines. The stock can hold the barrel, the receiver with one 8-round magazine in place, plus two additional 8-round magazines.

Looking up the kilt of the AR-7

Assembly is as follows. Pop the cap off the stock. Place the receiver into the stock, and tighten into place via a thumb-screw bolt (captured in the stock). Place barrel on gun, using a pin to align the barrel, and screw the barrel on. Pull out knob on charging handle. Insert magazine. The whole process takes 45 or so seconds.

The Henry AR-7’s barrel is a bit strange looking, the steel lined polymer barrel doesn’t have a ton of lining, so it looks mostly plastic. Repeated use, however, doesn’t heat it up to any unreasonable degree.

The Henry AR-7 is a blowback semi auto.

Tale Of The Tape:

Stock: Plastic, hollow… floats
Capacity: 8 + 1
Finish: Teflon coated receiver and coated steel barrel. Magazines are blued.
Overall Length: 35” assembled, 16.5 when stowed
Front Sight: Blade (Orange, adjustable)
Rear Sight: Peep, adjustable.
Weight: 3.5 LBS empty

Ammunition:

The Henry AR-7 is a simple blowback design, with a (relatively speaking) heavy bolt and heavy springs. It can be quite picky about the ammunition it eats. Henry recommends using only 40 grain HV round nose rounds. I use mini-mags in the gun and they work great. Stingers, with their slightly non-standard form factor, do not work well at all. This is also a good gun to use subsonic and “quiet” rounds, keeping in mind they will not cycle the ammo.

Shooting & Action:

The gun is extremely accurate, well behaved, and shoots exactly as you would expect a .22LR to shoot. It shoots clean 1 inch patterns at 50 yards.

The balance is better than you might expect.

One odd thing is figuring out where to put your non-trigger hand… normally I rest mine on the forearm of the stock, but there is no forearm. On the Henry AR-7 I instead wrap my hand around the front of the magazine.

The sights are accurate but very crude. The rear peep sight is a plate attached to the back of the receiver. To adjust it you loosen a screw, and slide the sight where you want it, then tighten the screw again. Very, very crude, but it does work. The front sight is a blade, and it can be moved left or right by knocking it with a punch. It’s easier to move the rear sight.

The gun contains grooves on the top (sort of a rail) that allow optics to be mounted centerline directly onto the receiver.

Fun Factor?

Fun factor? Yeah, it’s a really fun gun to shoot. It’s light, accurate and when running mini-mags it cycles flawlessly.

This is not a range gun, but I wouldn’t be afraid of putting 1,000 rounds downrange over a weekend, not at all. We generally get out the Henry AR-7 when we are traveling somewhere, see a range but we don’t have any of our range guns with us. It’s a “gun of opportunity”.

In the GHB we keep a “range kit” including a brick of .22LR, some targets, duct tape, and of course a cleaning kit. If I ever need to get home, I will pull out stuff like the targets (and a lot of other stuff, my GHB is stuffed with a lot of everyday stuff that I plan on leaving in the vehicle if the SHTF).

The Bottom Line:

The Henry AR-7 got a well deserved very bad rep for bad quality and poor performance when Charter Arms took over production, but I can tell you the Henry version is very well made, and Henry is just about the best company in the gun business when it comes to warranty and customer service. They are the national company I know where you can call and ask for the owner to talk about your gun and get customer service.

I recommend the Henry AR-7 without hesitation.