Just my humble two cents...
In all fairness I have never owned, and have scarcely handled a Henry (yet) so, I'm only speaking in the broadest of concepts here. I have owned my share of 1894, and 1895 Marlins, a couple of Rossi's, and a smattering of Winchesters.
I personally believe the lever action is more than adequate for general defense. Obviously, a shotgun has it's strengths...and it's limitations once the range exceeds 25 yards. If your rifle cartridges match your revolver cartridges...well..that's a bonus too.
When I was a kid in Georgia I had an 1894 that served similar duty. It took care of wild dogs, snakes, opossum, put venison on the table, etc. I have no reason to believe it wouldn't have worked just fine for bi-peds also.
the loading through the mag tube idiosyncracy of the Henry rifle doesn't strike me as a bad thing. I've had three lever actions ever fail on me. One was a busted feed ramp on a Winchester 94 because I was running it like a maniac. Pure negligence and abuse. The other two were on my Marlins when I had cartridges "jump" past the feed ramp upon recoil. I would then have to find a small screw driver, knifeblade, etc. and gently ease the cartridge back forward by the very edge of a rim. A time consuming, ugly inconvenience at the range, but definitely a terrible thing to happen when the shooting means something.
The Henry...lacking a feedgate, it seems would alleviate any chance of this ugly situation. Further more, eight to ten shots is really plenty for any of us Silly-vilians that aint kickin' in doors for a living or anything of that nature. What are those statistics? like ninety something percent of gun fights end without a shot being fired, and some other huge percentage end in one or two shots?
Seems to me that if you find yourself in a situation that requires more rounds than that Henry would hold, you need to be running fast and finding some adequate cover anyways. Futhermore, you'd likely be so damn jacked up on adrenaline, I don't know that you'd have the fine motor skills to slip cartridges past a loading gate with significantly more efficiency anyways.
In addition, it occurs to me that even though the obvious first requirement is to SURVIVE an armed confrontation...once I were in front of a "Jury of my peers" I'd feel alot better with a Henry being displayed by the Prosecutor than the latest, Greatest AR-15 clone.
So...just my rambling two cents and opinion. Good luck to you, whatever you decide.
