A while back I shot my Glock 42 and my Ruger Single Seven side by side. It seemed to me then that the .380 and .32 H&R were very similar in hand. The .327 Mag was clearly a more powerful round in that very UNscientific comparison. So I'm reading this thread with some interest. I'm having trouble finding gel tests for .32 H&R to compare to .380 and .327. I lifted some information from Brass Fetcher's 10 percent gel tests.
http://www.brassfetcher.com/
I chose to copy only the Hydra-Shok test in .380 to compare it to the similar .327 bullet.
.327 Mag
Speer Gold Dot 115 gr bullet impact velocity 1326 fps penetration 14.9 inches
Federal Hydra-Shok 85 gr bullet impact velocity 1304 fps penetration 12.3 inches
.380
Federal Hydra-Shok 90 gr bullet impact velocity 842 fps penetration 12.2 inches
So from those tests it looks like .327 with the heavier Speer round is the best performer. The two Hydra-Shoks are surprisingly close in penetration depths.
I also found this site
http://gundata.org/bullet-database/
which apparently just uses math to compare various calibers and loads. If I understand them correctly, these averages are across all the known loads for a particular caliber.
They publish this:
.32 H&R Average FPS: 998
Average Energy: 197
Average Gr: 89
Recoil: 0.42
Power Rank: 1.78 of 7
.380 Average FPS: 980
Average Energy: 194
Average Gr: 91
Recoil: 0.41
Power Rank: 1.78 of 7
.327 Average FPS: 1427
Average Energy: 452
Average Gr: 100
Recoil: 0.67
Power Rank: 2.86 of 7
While those results are averages of averages, it does look like .32 H&R and .380 perform closely, while .327 is faster and more energetic. Too bad Gun Data didn't include penetration averages.
I'm not sure what it all means. Just adding some grist.