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It's a sweet little revolver with a couple caveats.

First and foremost, the clearance on the loading port is really tight. The cylinder must be in exactly the right position or a cartridge will jam up tight while loading. That in itself would not be so bad, but the cylinder is ratcheted. And it catches just a few thousandth's of an inch past the proper position to load. If you let the cylinder catch on the next ratchet tooth before loading that chamber, you have to roll the cylinder all the way through and try again.

A minor complaint for a crotchety old man, but kind of a pain in the ass while training youngsters, and that is exactly why I bought this revolver.

Second: The sights are black on black. They are extremely difficult for me to pick up in bright afternoon sunlight. An issue easily resolved with a bit of contrasting paint.







The revolver has a 4 5/8 in barrel and weighs in at 36 ounces. It is very easy for me to control even with hot rounds. I loaded the 115 Speer Gold dot over 13.5 gr Win 296.

It is a bit too hot, as I had two cases which were difficult to extract. I will reduce that load to 12.5 or 13 gr.



The 85 gr XTP shot very nicely, and barely moved the revolver in my grip. This is a load which will punch targets for young and old alike. There's a flyer there which I will take responsibility for until I find otherwise.



And the super light load. 78 gr lasercast over 3 gr of Universal. I am hoping that a little more pressure and velocity will tighten things up a little.

Very cool! Thanks for the report.

I have the same complaint about the loading gate,but still like the gun. The cylinder gap seems a bit big as I get a lot of flash at the front of the cylinder, I am sure you know to teach those kids about flash burns from the cylinder. The rounds are very close to the front of the cylinder and I wonder if that contributes to this?My gun shot very well with factory 100 grainers. Well thats my two cents,thanks for the report and happy shooting!

Over size barrel cylinder gap causes powder blast escape. Be sure to wear eye protection.

And teach them to keep their fingers away from that barrel-cylinder gap. I got a little close one time with a Single Six .32 mag and got some unburned H110 granules forced through the skin on my finger. They got infected and I had to pick them out one by one with a knife. It wasn't fun. Closer yet you can do SERIOUS damage to yourself.

Of course. The proper manner in which to hold a revolver is the second lesson, right after never point the muzzle at anything you are not willing to destroy.

I vividly remember the first time I fired a revolver. 1974, my freshman year in college. A friend down the hall in the college dorm reach under his bed and drug out six or seven various firearms. One was a 22 lr revolver. We drove out to some BLM ground and he handed me the revolver. I wrapped my hands around it an pulled the trigger.

I am certainly glad it was just a 22 lr. Even then it stung my weak hand pretty well where it was wrapped around the barrel/cylinder gap. The grand kids all gain the benefit of my mistake.

A demonstration of shooting the revolver at night could reinforce the lesson.

Nice looking little gun...and the perfect caliber for its size...

One of my long time shooting and hunting partners is very big into .32 caliber guns. I've shot all of his and the recoil is very very mild even with the hottest of loads...

Bob

Looks like about the same results as my 5.5". Same with the loading port and gap as well. The rear sight on mine has a lot of horizontal play and it does not fully return to "zero" when moved. I will certainly have to do something with the front sight. Thinking about getting a Williams FireSight.

Love the gun so far. Just need to find out why my reloading supplies are not here yet! The 100 rounds of factory loads are almost gone.

I ordered brass from Midway originally a couple months ago. It was back ordered and supposed to come in Aug 25. That never happened.

So I had to cancel the order from Midway late in Sept. and had Grafs send me 500 pieces.

I bought all the bullets and primers locally.

[quote=Idaho_Shooter]It's a sweet little revolver with a couple caveats.

First and foremost, the clearance on the loading port is really tight. The cylinder must be in exactly the right position or a cartridge will jam up tight while loading. That in itself would not be so bad, but the cylinder is ratcheted. And it catches just a few thousandth's of an inch past the proper position to load. If you let the cylinder catch on the next ratchet tooth before loading that chamber, you have to roll the cylinder all the way through and try again.

A minor complaint for a crotchety old man, but kind of a pain in the ass while training youngsters, and that is exactly why I bought this revolver.

Second: The sights are black on black. They are extremely difficult for me to pick up in bright afternoon sunlight. An issue easily resolved with a bit of contrasting paint.



Thanks ID Shooter, I just picked mine up today (5.5"bbl) and had the same problem when I tried it at the range. Couldn't get it to load without trouble and hard to eject also. I took the cylinder out and rounds fell right into the chambers so I knew they were not too tight. This situation is not conducive to a fast reload.

So, do you guys think this is OK? I called my dealer from the range and he was willing to send it back to Ruger if I wanted to go that route, but I don't. I'm at my WA place now getting ready to go south to Cali for the winter (wife lives and works there). So he suggests I call Ruger in the AM and talk to them about it. In my mind, either the revolver isn't timed correctly or the loading port isn't machined large enough. I just tried your method of just getting the chamber to a position I could load it and not going past the ratchet catch and I can get it to load and eject OK that way, but that's not the way my Blackhawk works. I roll that one past the catch then back to the stop and rounds slide right in. The dealer thinks if I send it directly to Ruger they can send it right back to me in Cali. Now I'm not sure about sending it if you guys have the same problem.

Are yours the Lipsey's models? I waited for months for this one (had to leave the area for a few months and couldn't pick it up when it did arrive) and don't really want to have to send it in and wait or even find out Ruger thinks this is the way it should work. I had ideas of using it on a javelina hunt in Feb.

Thanks for posting your loads guys, now I have an idea where to start if I end up getting this thing to work the way I'd like it to.

Geno

I have two original 32 H&R SS's and one will not extract Federal brass. Starline brass gives no such issues.

I have been shooting the 327 quite a bit over the last couple weeks.

I dropped the 115 gr Gold Dot down to 12.8 gr of H110 and it shoots very nicely.

I used an 85 gr XTP over 4.2 gr of SR4756 today to dispatch a feral cat. The results were quite satisfactory.

And the Grand kids down to eight years of age are quickly running through my stock of 78 gr lasercast. Loaded with 3 gr of Universal they do actually feel much like a 22 WRM, and they do not damage my metallic flip over targets at fifteen yards, except for knocking the paint off.