How is it that such a simple little gun can have such a lengthy and complicated name and an even more complicated history? In trying to learn more about these adorable break action shotguns I’ve come across both quite a lot and strikingly little which should make for an awkward review, but I am nothing if not curious. H&R Firearms are synonymous with New England Firearms (NEF) and there’s a fair bit of history behind the names.
First, what led me down this road. I’ve heard of H&R / NEF single shot rifles and shotguns for a long while, often without truly knowing what I was seeing at the time. There’s a whole ballistic galaxy of variations of these guns floating around in many different calibers and with different stocks, finishes, and barrel lengths. Back in the day H&R had a barrel upgrade program where you could send in your receiver and they would custom fit a different caliber to your gun, though sadly this service is long gone now.
Exactly what brought me here was bumping into a dull grey .410 shotgun which was so short as to not fit the used rifle rack. If you’ve read my June review of the Rossi Overland .410 then you may have guessed that small lightweight .410s have turned into something of a draw for me. From a practical standpoint I realize how limited they are in performance, yet there’s something so darn cool and fun about the lowly .410 which I keep coming back to. This one I thought was all stainless steel with black polymer furniture and a thumbhole stock which can hold an extra four shells on the side, I couldn’t put it down. Especially not when seeing a price tag which was on par with the going rate for dirt. I’ve spent more on polished rock necklaces than on this little rascal.
And thus my world of confusion began. The barrel on this model is stamped “Tamer Model SB1.” There is apparently an SB2 as well. In fact, I just held one. I have no idea what this means. These guns also seem to be part of an overall “Survivor” family as far as I’ve been able to tell, that being a basic single shot longarm. This model comes with a stock which I am rather proud to have accurately identified as being made by Choate simply by recognizing its texture. While it can hold an extra four shells on the right side of the stock there are no sling mounts or any other creature comforts to be found, although I have seen some pictures where this stock set does have sling loops so it may have changed at some point. The grip is short, the length of pull is short, and the butt of the stock has angles which are just sharp enough to properly hurt when firing 2.5″ rifled slugs through the smoothbore barrel.
A side note here: I have done a lot of reading about the safety of firing rifled slugs through tighter choked barrels. With .410 in particular it seems to be that since most of them come with a fixed full choke it is okay to shoot solid lead rifled slugs through them, but only rifled lead slugs. For larger gauges with removable chokes I’ll stick to going no tighter than an improved choke but for .410 I’ll make this exception.
Trying to find more information on these guns in particular has been challenging but from what I’ve gathered the finish is electroless nickel, not stainless, and the barrel is somewhere between 19″ and 20″ long. The .410 in particular weighs approximately six pounds and has a notably tall brass front bead sight because of the steep taper from the 3″ chamber down to the rest of the barrel. As an experiment I added a TruGlo “Glo-Dot II Universal” fiber optic sight onto mine which was a pain in the butt to get situated but creates a nifty dot over dot sight picture which I’m kind of into.
Controls could not be any more basic. It has an external hammer, a trigger, and a lever to unlock the action. The only safety is keeping the hammer forward as the action of cocking it back will lift a transfer bar which will then contact the firing pin when the hammer drops. Simple, basic, and nicely affordable. Unlike some of the lower priced shotguns you can find on the used market the H&Rs feel very well built with fantastic fit and finish and positive controls. Even the trigger is light and crisp!
The best part of shooting the SB1 isn’t the accuracy I’ve been getting out of those rifled slugs which has not been great, and it’s certainly not the surprisingly sharp recoil out of the world’s shortest stock. For this little H&R the sheer joy of shooting comes from holding the action unlock with a thumb then giving the gun a gentle downward flick which opens up the action to the tune of a whimsical *tick!* announcing the spent shell getting launched five feet behind you. Yes, for the price of dirt you can get the single greatest invention ever provided to the break action world: An automatic ejector. I’ll shoot once, wince, look at the target with a feeling of “Meh,” then snap the barrel open and start giggling like an idiot. The SB1 is worth it just for this feature alone and I will never cease to be greatly amused by it. It’ll make you grin. It’ll make your lane neighbors grin. It’ll make the audience grin. So long as you don’t hit them with the empties.
For being such basic guns I was surprised to find any aftermarket support for them. Choate in particular makes a number of stock and forend options, including a longer thumbhole/Dragonuv style stock with a taller grip which holds six extra shells and has a nice one inch rubber recoil pad. There’s also a forend which matches the same style as the original but includes a swivel loop. An option from ATI called the “Shotforce” stock kit makes an H&R/NEF gun look more like an M4 carbine, if you can believe it. Boyd’s also makes some laminate furniture for these firearms but the “Tamer” series only shows 12 and 20 gauges, not .410. I would have to wonder if the 20 gauge would work seeing as the Tamer SB1 had been available as a 20 gauge as well. With Boyd’s the forend also apparently needs to reuse a spacer on the back which you don’t get with the polymer versions, so going from polymer to laminate may be difficult due to sourcing this part.
By the way, the longer Choate thumbhole stock is called the “H&R Mark 6 Handi-Rifle and .410 Shotgun stock” and I gotta say, it’s a huge improvement. It comes with a small and medium spacer already installed for length of pull but I made it as short as it would go. The recoil pad makes shooting a .410 with slugs an absolute breeze, though the grip is lacking in texture and is not only taller but notably larger, something which I didn’t care for. Some laser stippling may be in this stock’s near future.
Further digging around online has uncovered a blued specimen of SB1 called the “Survivor” which had a removable choke tube and can safely fire .45 Colt as well. Neat!
As for that complicated history part? I’ve been having trouble finding anything online but Boyd’s website of all places has a lot of good info, including a preface which explains how darn confusing it all is. Going from this article, H&R originally began in 1871 and ended in 1986. Near the end of the brand’s life it had changed hands by the Kiddie company in 1960, then the brand was reopened in 1991 under the name “H&R 1871, Inc” up until 2000 when they were sold to Marlin, which was then bought out by Remington in 2007 which was then owned by Freedom Group, LLC. The article ends here but I can add a bit more to the story in that far more recently when Remington had fully tanked it was none other than Palmetto State Armory which bought up the H&R brand where the name can now be found on countless retro AR-15 uppers and lowers.
As for the New England Firearms brand name, according to Boyd’s NEF is more of a trademark name which is synonymous with the H&R parent company.
Basically, what all of this means is that these single shot long guns are no longer being produced. There is a similar option offered by Rossi in the “Tuffy” lineup, including the “Poly Tuffy Survival” which I had considered for a time which will also safely fire .45 Colt. These Rossis seem to have some updated features like Picatinny rails for optics and a cross bolt safety but I’m not a fan of how the action unlock is flush within the receiver rather than nicely raised on the H&R’s.
Thanks to countless hours of my life previously spent on Youtube I can confidently say that H&R/NEF single shot shotguns had been available in .410, 28, 20, 16, 12, and 10 gauge, and I recently read that there had been a .300 Blackout rifle with a threaded barrel made shortly before production had ceased. Rifled variants could be had in a whole heap of calibers from .22 to .308 to .500 S&W. The rifles in particular were noteworthy for being very accurate, which makes sense given there aren’t any moving parts to unsettle the operation.
H&R single shot rifles and shotguns are small, lightweight, economical, crazy fun, and conveniently gentle on how much space they’ll take up in a gun vault. Now that I’ve experienced one for myself I’m left wanting to find another. For now I’ll be keeping both fingers crossed that Palmetto State Armory brings back these single shot wonders as they’re great value and just plain enjoyable to own.
