Finally got my Charter Arms Professional in .32H&R back, and tested it this morning.
First, here's the timeline for all the little events:
05/02/20 Ordered it from Davidson's
05/07 Took delivery at local shop and paid remaining balance
05/08 Took revolver out for a test drive, discovered that it was shooting 6" low and 2" right at 10 yards. Wrote an email to Charter asking if I could send it in for warranty repair. Got a response very quickly saying a box would be sent. (This was a Friday.)
05/11 Received box for pre-paid return. (Monday.)
05/12 Sent package to Charter.
05/27 Didn't hear anything from them for a couple of weeks, so I sent an email to make sure they'd gotten it. Got a response the next day saying it had arrived on the 14th.
08/17 Got an email saying that yes, it was indeed shooting low, and that they'd replaced the barrel and it was still shooting low, and that they thought maybe they'd gotten an inferior batch of barrels.
08/19 Another email, saying they were still working on it and were getting a new vise to help with the repair. (?!)
09/03 Email says new vise has been mounted and that further work will now commence.
09/21 Email saying that repairs were complete and gun would be shipped.
09/22 Package received!
09/23 Test firing done this morning. Here's the result:
View attachment 944288
Well, it ain't six inches anymore, so that's good, right? This is 11 rounds of commercial Federal ammo fired single action, seated, from a rest, at 10 yards. Group size is 3 3/4", and that little cluster there is 2 1/2" low and 2" to the right. That green circle is 2" diameter, if that helps your perspective.
The gun arrived with a test target, which looks like this:
View attachment 944289
That recommended sight picture seems odd to me. Yeah, I guess if I could learn to not have the front sight level with the rear, I wouldn't have had to have it fixed in the first place, right?
And here's the technician's report:
View attachment 944290
I notice there's no mention of the shooting-to-the-right issue, but so it goes.
I don't fault the company for taking so long with this, as I know parts were hard to get what with the pandemic situation, but I am a little disappointed with the outcome. When I got the email saying that the new barrel didn't help any, I mentioned that I'd be okay with a regular blade sight on there as I could then file it to suit, but didn't get a response to that suggestion. That makes me suspect the barrels come to them with this silly sight already there.
I guess I could pad the right side of the notch on the rear sight some way to take care of the to-the-right problem, as it's wide enough. And the rear of the optical fiber is slightly conical, so making the top level with the sight would get it a teensy bit closer. Beyond that, I'm out of ideas-- I don't think I want to invest in it enough to stake a new front sight (or adjustable rear) on it. If it grouped tighter, I might have considered one of those fixes.
On the plus side, my CA Pink Lady (also .32H&R) shoots much better than this! (Though it did need a bit of filing on the front sight).
