Browning B92

[Scout800a]

Anyone have any experiance with Browning B92's in 357 or 44?

thanks

[helice]

I have one of each. They are wonderful short rifles, very smooth and utterly dependable.

[Nazgul]

Have a 44. Accurate and slick. Goes hunting with me every year.

Don

[M-Tecs]

I also have one of each. And I agree that they are wonderful short rifles being very smooth and utterly dependable.

I do like my 357 better. My 44’s bore measures .433. It shoots jackets fine and I am sure it would shoot proper sized cast well but all of my 44 molds are undersize for this bore.

The only down side is that they are not a real US made Winchester but I believe they are better made than the US made Winchester 92’s. Better material and better tolerances except for the bore size on the 44.

[williamwaco]

I have the Winchester version.

It is spectacular.

( .357 )

[pietro]

I have the Winchester version.

It is spectacular.

( .357 )

FWIW, both the Browning B-92 and the new "Winchester" 92's are made by the same company - Miroku Firearms Co, in Japan.

Which is why the fit/finish is heads/shoulders above any that came out of the New Haven plant (excepting those from the Winchester Custom Shop, of course).


.

[Lloyd Smale]

had a 44 that i foolishly let go. Probabably the best fit and finshed lever gun i ever had.

[Nobade]

I had a 44 version, same a Mtecs - .433" groove diameter, would only shoot custom bullets with smokeless. I sold that and now have the 357 version. It took me a long time to find a good boolit for smokeless, that one is the Ranch Dog 175. The fat nose fits the long throat and still is short enough to feed.

Now with black powder it's another matter. Both those rifles work exceedingly well with black. Using the right boolits I had no trouble finding good accurate loads. Presently I am using the 357 for NRA pistol caliber levergun silhouette with the biglube snakebite boolit, 38spl cases, and FFFg black powder. Quite effective and great fun making noise and smoke!

[McLintock]

I've got the .44 and have shot it a lot in Cowboy Action matches, including the long range side matches for pistol caliber rifles, shooting out to 100 yards. I never slugged the bore, but it is very accurate with .430" lead bullets, and the 230 gr Lazer Cast in particular. For the main matches, just a 200 gr .430" did very well. Never have shot it with jacketed bullets. The thing I always like about the Browning's and even the current Winchesters is that they had the proper receiver contour on the bottom, whereas the Rossi's and their decendents had a flatter contour and just never looked right to me, just a personal preference maybe. I put a saddle ring on mine and Lyman tang sight and it's never let me down.
McLintock

[oldfart1956]

I've had the Browning 92 in .44 for quite some time now. Matter of fact it's what led me to Cast Boolits. (my first post if I recall) Anyways, my gripe is the same one all .44 rifle shooters have. The bores on the rifles are oversize as compared to handguns. I've got 3 .44 molds (429244/42930/H&G and none of them shoot fer beans in the Browning. Two of them are tumbling before they even leave the barrel. The bore is .433 so yes the boolits are undersize. Loading hot works better (obturating the boolits to better fill the bore I assume) but recoil becomes objectionable real fast. The sights suck and the front one can't be changed easilly. Fit&finish is excellent by the way! :) Smooth action...with a 12lb. trigger pull. And none of the boolits cycle thru....have to load it single-shot. And yes, I've seated short...still won't work. I'm gonna give it one more try with Lee's 200gr. rnf cast soft to hard, air-cooled, waterdropped and heat treated and see if I can make it work. At present I've tried 30 different loads/alloys/lubes/treatments and the only good load is horribly abusive with a jacketed bullet. This is probably one of the very few guns I'm gonna sell. Then get a Ruger Blackhawk in .44 so I can use these molds. Not saying it's a bad gun...just a poor decision on bore size and possibly rate of twist. Audie...the Oldfart..

[runfiverun]

i have the browning also in 44 mag.
my issue is that it will absolutly not feed anything longer than 1.610.
1.611 will hang up.
no big deal i just swage 40 S&W brass into 44- 430 diameter bullets using my 180 gr 357 boolit as a core,and put the canellure to make the oal 1.609.

[Nobade]

Hey oldfart1956, you could always do what I did - have Mountain Molds cut you a mold that fits the rifle. Once I did that it cycled fine and shot accurately. Don't sell yours, I wish I hadn't sold mine and would be upset with myself if I hadn't found a really nice 357 version right after.

And remember, these things shoot very well with soft boolits and black powder. The kick isn't bad and the accuracy is better than using smokeless.

[Just Duke]

We need two of these.

[Just Duke]

I have the SAECO mould and it looks to be to small.

[Just Duke]

Let us know if you guys have one you will part with.

[Just Duke]

Anyone know what the rate of twist is and what bullet weight would be conducive to the rate of twist?

[rintinglen]

had a 44 that i foolishly let go. Probabably the best fit and finshed lever gun i ever had.

Parallels my own experience precisely. I have one now in 32=20, which I dote on. The 44 got sold because I kept getting leading. With what I know now, I suspect the problem with the 44 was an over-size bore, but cast-boolits was still 15 years in the future, and all I knew came from my old Lyman No 45. Worked well in my 38's and 44 Ruger revolver--didn't have the knowledge to adapt my loading techniques. You can learn here in a few hours reading what took old guys like me 25 years to learn.

[yeahbub]

There seems to have been something in the water with those .44 barrels. Rossi had the same problem for years and a friend has one with a .426 bore/.434 groove.. . . Whose idea was that, anyway? Mediocre with jacketed and "f'getaboutit" with commercial cast. We had good success with soft alloy paper patched sized .001 over groove, but time constraints (big family) kept him from it. We discussed various options like having the bore hard chromed .002 on a side, which would bring it to .430 in the groove with the process set up to favor a slightly heavier plate in the muzzle end, but most places that do custom chrome wouldn't touch it without dismounting the barrel first - guns and paperwork and all that. Now we have a barrel blank and we're going to change it out. I'm told Rossi changed their threads once or twice and what the threads are will have to be discovered, but that's another discussion.

I can just imagine Rossi's barrel maker scratching his head, wondering why those Americans want their .44 barrels so danged oversize, while we're scratching our heads wondering why they make them so big. Steve, of Steve's Gunz told me that, for some undiscoverable reason, they were deliberately produced at the maximum allowable SAAMI dimensions for .44 mag, but that they have finally gotten the message about bore size in the .44's.

Other calibers in the Rossi's I've examined seem to be right on the money, including a .44-40 which is right at .428.

[Just Duke]

Parallels my own experience precisely. I have one now in 32=20, which I dote on. The 44 got sold because I kept getting leading. With what I know now, I suspect the problem with the 44 was an over-size bore, but cast-boolits was still 15 years in the future, and all I knew came from my old Lyman No 45. Worked well in my 38's and 44 Ruger revolver--didn't have the knowledge to adapt my loading techniques. You can learn here in a few hours reading what took old guys like me 25 years to learn.

I had the same problem with my Winchester 1894 in 44 Magnum

[Just Duke]

There seems to have been something in the water with those .44 barrels. Rossi had the same problem for years and a friend has one with a .426 bore/.434 groove.. . . Whose idea was that, anyway? Mediocre with jacketed and "f'getaboutit" with commercial cast. We had good success with soft alloy paper patched sized .001 over groove, but time constraints (big family) kept him from it. We discussed various options like having the bore hard chromed .002 on a side, which would bring it to .430 in the groove with the process set up to favor a slightly heavier plate in the muzzle end, but most places that do custom chrome wouldn't touch it without dismounting the barrel first - guns and paperwork and all that. Now we have a barrel blank and we're going to change it out. I'm told Rossi changed their threads once or twice and what the threads are will have to be discovered, but that's another discussion.

I can just imagine Rossi's barrel maker scratching his head, wondering why those Americans want their .44 barrels so danged oversize, while we're scratching our heads wondering why they make them so big. Steve, of Steve's Gunz told me that, for some undiscoverable reason, they were deliberately produced at the maximum allowable SAAMI dimensions for .44 mag, but that they have finally gotten the message about bore size in the .44's.

Other calibers in the Rossi's I've examined seem to be right on the money, including a .44-40 which is right at .428.

Would relining be an option? JonK had good results with it.

[JFE]

B92's in 44 seem to work well with jacketed but most users report poor results with conventional size cast 44 bullets. The groove diameter is large and the rifling very shallow, which doesn't allow much of a grip for undersized bullets. Because of the large throat bore alignment with undersized bullets to my mind is also a problem. A fatter bullet fills the chamber and also helps to align the bullet in the throat. The throat is so long that you will never fill the throat with a bullet that will cycle through the action.

The best mould I have found is Mihecs 44-300 gr HP mould. This is a GC design with 3 crimp grooves. It feeds really well too. Loads using W296 are about as accurate as my jacketed loads - around 1.5" at 50 yards, which is about all I can muster with open sights these days.

I have often wondered whether there would be interest in a group buy for better sized barrel with a cast friendly throat to suit the B-92's?