H&R Handy rifle

Dean:  First thing I would do is to check to make sure that everything on the rifle is tight, scope if you have one and sights, whatever your sighting equipment is.  If that is ok and you have a scope on the rifle I would remove the barrel from the action and place it in a paded vise and while looking through the scope tap on it with your hand and see if the reticals jump around indicating a possible internal problem.  You might want to swap the scope with one you know performs on one of your other riflesw.  If this checks out I would reassemble the rifle and place a .0015 feeler gauge across the rear of the chamber and close the action, you should be able to easily pull the feeler gauge out as there should be clearance between the rear of the barrel and the action.  If you can't pull the gauge out open the action and see if there are rub marks where the barrel has rubbed the frame, this can cause accuracy problems and may be a reason to send it back to H&R.  Next I would check the forend and make sure that it is not in contact with the receiver and you might try the washer / o ring suggested in an earlier post.

If all of this checks out and you ares still having accuracy problems I would ger some cerosafe from Brownell's and do a chamber cast.  In that regard you might want to google Mike Bellm and go to his web site where you will find some excellent information and pictures on out of center chambers and some excellent articles on how to make break action firearms shoot. (he specializes in TC's but it applies to the H&Rs also)  Mike also has an excellent article with pictures on how to pillar bed a forend on a TC which will apply to the H&R.

I have got to throw this in and don't take it personally, but all of the above assumes that you are a good shot, know how to bench a rifle and understand the pecularities of shooting a rifle with a two piece stock.

Good luck on resolving the accuracy issue and keep us posted.