I have a Henry Big Boy, .44 Magnum. I've looked at the .22's and thought about them, but then someone gave me a Ruger 10/22 for free, and well, I am a levergunner at heart, but free IS free. I still like the looks of the Henry Golden Boy. Most people I've talked to like their Golden Boy rifles, and have not had any problems with them. As I understand it, the reciever on the Big Boy is brass and on the Golden Boy it is brass-covered-metal, not sure what metal it is, and I think they call that Brasslite. Anyway, since you seem to want to know "for sure," I reccomend that you email the company President, Mr. Anthony Imperato at this address:
info@henryrepeating.com He personally answers every email that comes into the company. They have excellent customer service. Some folks come on this forum and bad mouth the company and the rifles, and I think one guy does it often but has gun-dealer experience and has had customers have problems with these rifles, so I will leave that as an open question. I can't speak to reliability of the golden boy rifles, but I can tell you that I fire my Big Boy with .44 Mag (winter) and .44 Special (rest of the year) about 100 to 150 rounds at a time, and that's probably 2-3 times a month, maybe it averages out to twice a month. Never had a problem with my Big Boy rifle. I am religious about cleaning after each shooting session (never go to bed with dirty rifles...) I fire store-bought factory-loaded ammo, and have never had a problem. For what it's worth, I am not able to really use iron sights on any rifle due to visual issues, and that applies to my Arisaka, my Winchester model 94's, etc. So, for my Big Boy, I've got the Henry scope mounting bracket, and I use a Bushnell 4x fixed power scope. I love that rifle. If I had a Golden Boy, I'd need the scope mounting bracket, and I admit that I'd probably just get the regular lever rifle in .22 (blued metal) and add the scope instead of going "brass" and adding a scope, but that is unique to my vision and my taste.
