Wednesday, January 01, 2020

Harrington and Richardson 733 Range Report

Today I got to shoot the Harrington and Richardson 733 .32 S&W Long revolver I bought a couple of weeks ago.

As mentioned in my last post, a range report was delayed because I had to replace the original hammer spring/strut assembly with a plastic part that shattered. The replacement with a metal part on it dropped right it and the gun functions as it should now.

I went shooting on a friend's property with three other people and was able to put 30 rounds through the gun at an 8" gong. From about 10 yards I hit the gun if I didn't yank the trigger. The double action pull is pretty stiff, but smooth. The single action pull is quite a bit lighter. The front sight is a narrow blade, nickel plated like the rest of the gun. I'd painted it with some white out ahead of time so I could see it.

The ammo I used was Prvi Partizan (PPU) .32 S&W Long with 98 LRN bullets. They claim a muzzle velocity of 787 FPS from a 6" barrel on their website (figures converted from metric). Out of the H&R's 2.5" it's probably making about 650 FPS. All rounds functioned as expected except for the very first shot, which gave me the first problem I've experienced with PPU ammo (and I've shot a lot of 5.56x45 and 7.63x25 from them). That round required three hits before going off.

Recoil was very mild, as expected. The H&R has small grips so in a harder recoiling round it would be unpleasant to shoot, but not with .32 S&W Long.

I don't anticipate putting high round counts through the gun but between it and my Ruger Single Six Vaquero in .32 H&R Mag, I'll probably setup for reloading .32 wadcutter ammo.

Fro the about $160 I have into the gun, I consider it well spent.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you look around on the auction sights you can occasionally find a Pachmayr compact grips that fit the H&R small grip frames. I've added a set to both a 733 and a 929. Made a world of difference in handling.