Monac
Member
A quick update: I found a mid-war H&R Defender for a decent price. Had everything I wanted...."modern" so shooting new ammo is no worry at all; a decent price; not too small; H&R made okay guns and a decent seller. All it was lacking was a S&W logo...but I'm still looking for a "Perfected" as I'm partial to Smiths (although I liked adding the H&R to my one gun collection of H&R top breaks...a .22...699 I believe).
One thing to know about the wartime & postwar H&R Defenders with black plastic grips: The grips are made of a plastic called cellulose acetate, one of its trade names being "Tenite". It's fine stuff - unless you store it in a small, fairly well enclosed space. Then one of the volatile chemicals in the plastic creates a gas containing acetic acid, and the grips self-destruct over time. Acetic acid is the acid in vinegar, and this process is called "vinegar syndrome" by people who collect this stuff - vintage film collectors especially, since film is normally stored in tight-fitting cans. Keeping the pistol in a good sized safe is probably fine, but you may not want to store it a case or box.
I do not know if the BROWN plastic H&R grips were made of the same stuff. All the H&R grips I have seen ruined this way were black, IIRC. It's not a huge problem, just something to be aware of.