Pretty much what the other guys said. It's a great woods companion, fun backyard target shooter, well made, accurate, all of the above. Just a good line of revolvers from a quality manufacturer.
I have the H&R 949 (side-open gate). Really enjoy shooting it, but not reloading. The Sportsman is much easier to reload. If it is in good shape, he should enjoy it.
I read the history of H&R. Good company in it's day, but couldn't make the transition to newer style revolvers with S&W and others.
When I was a boy my stepmother's dad always kept a 6" H&R Sportsman hanging on a nail in the feed locker of his barn in Henry Co., MO. It was loaded with "ratshot" and/or SV .22 Shorts and used to dispatch rats and other pests in and around the barn.
Maintenance consisted of wiping it down with an oily rag and running a couple of patches through the bore and chambers occasionally. It got to looking sort of "sorry", but it always worked, hit where it was pointed and never wore out despite the more than thirty years of benign neglect and hard use it got while it hung there.
It was the first handgun that I earned permission to use unsupervised when I was about 12, and I did a bunch of woods walking and plinking with it. Grandpa Cecil would pay us a 'bounty' of $0.02 on every starling or pigeon we killed in the barn or feed lot, as they'd congregate on the calf feeders and their droppings ruined what grain that they didn't eat. We'd usually "invest" our earnings in more BBs and .22 Shorts at the Western Auto store in town.
IMHO,the old H&R top-breaks make great utility working or recreational tools. Tough, durable, reliable and more than accurate enough for most tasks. It's a real pity that they don't make them anymore.