[Owen Meany]

Hi everyone,

I am desperately seeking information on how to field strip the H&R .25 Self-Loading pistol. I somewhere encountered the following directions for the .32 version:

1) With the striker in fired position and the magazine removed, pull down the front of the trigger guard until the “step” can be seen, and hold it there.

2) Move the slide and barrel off the frame toward the front. As it clears its track, the barrel will be released for removal.

Thinking that the process would be the same for the .25, I attempted to apply the above instructions to the .25 and was unable to because the .25's trigger guard did not seem to want to budge at all.

Please, please chime in if you have knowledge about field stripping these guns. I really need to get this gun apart to clean and oil.

A thousand thanks in advance.

[Steven Mace]

Owen Meany, try the following on your H&R pistol for disassembly. After checking the chamber to verify the pistol is unloaded, the magazine was inserted, and the trigger was pulled. This dropped the firing pin. The top of the spring-steel trigger guard was grasped and moved slightly to the rear and down, which disengaged a lug on the trigger guard from a notch in the bottom of the barrel. The barrel and slide were then pulled off the front of the frame. Hope this helps!

Steve Mace

[Owen Meany]

Owen Meany, try the following on your H&R pistol for disassembly. After checking the chamber to verify the pistol is unloaded, the magazine was inserted, and the trigger was pulled. This dropped the firing pin. The top of the spring-steel trigger guard was grasped and moved slightly to the rear and down, which disengaged a lug on the trigger guard from a notch in the bottom of the barrel. The barrel and slide were then pulled off the front of the frame. Hope this helps!

Steve Mace
Thank you so much for your help. That does indeed turn out to be pretty much the proper method, with just a couple little differences that I have since learned about.

For one thing, someone on another forum told me that, unlike the .32 H&R, on the .25 it is the lower, rear end of the trigger guard that "unsnaps" from the frame. This permits the upper, front end to pivot, essentially accomplishing the same thing you mentioned as far as the lug is concerned, since the pivoting action causes the lug to disengage from the barrel by rotating down and out of play.

Also, something I found out on my own, with no little frustration, is that the .25 self-loader is hammer-fired, not striker-fired. After attempting disassembly having dry fired the gun, I found the slide would not budge after moving forward about 1/4". This I finally deduced was because the inside edge of the slide's end cap was contacting the back edge of the hammer in its fired position. Simply retracting the slide once to cock the hammer solved the problem, since the hammer then was held back out of the way of the slide's path as it moved forward.

Anyway, it has now, thankfully, been oiled and reassembled.

Information on the little H&R .25 is certainly not plentiful, that's for sure.

Thanks again for your help.

[Jim K]

In the .25, H&R went back to the disassembly used in the Webley, while the .32 trigger guard works the reverse of the Webley.

The H&R is often described as a copy of the Webley and they were licensed to use Webley patents, but the similarity is more external than internal. The Webley uses a leaf spring as a recoil spring and has a conventional exposed hammer.

Jim

[Owen Meany]

Thank you, Jim. I always like learning about these old guns, particularly the less popular ones.