Henry SPD: Innovation Meets Old-School Design

Are you ready for an influx of lever-action innovation? While you might think lever guns are for Fudds and cowboy action shooters, Henry Repeating Arms thinks it’s time to remix the lever-action formula for the 2020s, along with their other designs. Enter their new Special Projects Division, or SPD for short. This lineup debuts with the new Hush series, a tactical lever-gun built with modern technology.

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However, it is very obviously much different from Henry’s traditional lever guns, made for hunters and cowboy cosplay. The Hush comes with a match-grade 416R stainless steel barrel built in collaboration with Wisconsin’s BSF Barrels. It is wrapped in carbon fiber that provides lightweight strength. Henry says their design “creates a 95% air gap between the carbon and steel, reducing weight, promoting faster cooling, and ensuring temperature stability. As the steel heats and expands, the carbon sleeve expands with it, preventing delamination and maintaining accuracy during long shooting sessions.”

The muzzle is threaded for easy suppressor attachment, with thread pitch depending on what caliber you buy—the rifle is launched in your choice of .357 Magnum/.38 Special, .44 Magnum/.44 Special, .45 Colt, .30-30 Winchester or 45-70 Government.

The furniture is also new-age stuff. That slim, skeletonized aluminum forend was built in conjunction with the aftermarket gurus at TAPCO. M-LOK slots allow easy attachment of accessories, and if you want to add an optic, there’s a forged carbon-fiber Picatinny rail on the receiver. And you’ll want an optic, because these rifles come with no irons…

As is becoming increasingly common in the tactical lever-action scene, Henry went with a wood buttstock despite the trick new forearm. It’s a hardwood laminate, hollowed out to lighten the rifle, with checking to help you keep your grip and a rubber buttpad to cut down on felt recoil. Henry says that “Opting for the laminate buttstock ensures the familiar wood-to-skin touch that’s missing from full aluminum builds.” They’re right; a lot of modern furniture leaves shooters feeling cold, and a wood stock offers a balance and feel that many shooters want, even if they’ve gone tacticool with a space cowboy rifle.

Henry gave the Hush a matte finish on the metal, except for that shiny, stainless barrel. See more specs, photos and MSRPs here (at launch, all rifles were priced at $1,999).

Long-term plans

The idea is that the Henry SPD series will be here for the long term, offering high-performance rifles to people who want to do more than shoot a deer over an apple pile at 100 paces. Henry’s PR says these guns will be “engineered from the ground up by some of America’s brightest minds in firearms design to meet the ever-evolving needs of today’s and tomorrow’s outdoorsmen, hunters, and hobbyists. Born from a singular mission: to lead while others follow."

So who knows where this could go? For the immediate future, we expect lots of carbon-fiber barrels, aluminum furniture and suppressor-threaded muzzles for guns that look a lot like Henry’s existing models. But if the company is serious about innovation, maybe we’ll see something all-new, not just a mix-and-match job on existing models. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, either; a suppressed lever-action rifle ticks a lot of boxes for many hunters and shooters, and Henry is smart to see their opening in the market.