Rossi 92

[sparky45]

I just jumped back into the Levergun category, again. I bought a Rossi 92 NIB; 20" Octagonal Barrel and case hardened Receiver in 38/357 . I can't hardly stand the wait(bought it on a auction site). It should be here this coming week. I plan to shoot almost exclusively cast through her and was wondering what would be the best that would cycle without problems. I have a Lyman 358477 150gr that I have been using in my Ruger SP101 with excellent results, but I wasn't sure it would feed right in the Rossi, guess I'll find out. I was looking through Lymans catalog and I think I would like to try a round flat point in 150-170 gr. Anyone have any suggestions?
BTW, I was following two Rossi's to buy and was real lucky to have bought the one I did, as the other went for a pile of money. http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=335285108.
Can't predict what will happen in an auction.

[missionary5155]

Good morning
I agree with the auctions. You can get some real bargains with a bit of patience.
Rossi... Ranch Dog started a site called Rossi Rifleman dedicated to Rossi's. Lots of great info there about you new lever flipper.
Me I am partial to the lyman 358429. Plain base and my mold with 50-50 casts at 172. 10 grains of 2400 shoots nicely in mine. Have run it to 12.5 gr 2400 but with 75 WW to 25 range lead. That is a very nice thumper that would take care of any beasty of about 170 pounds. You may have to shorten brass a wee bit to get 100 % function as this boolit has a long nose.
Mike in Peru

[ironhead7544]

Had 2 older model 92 Rossi 357 rifles. Fed most anything. The truncated cone bullets feed really well in 357/44 mag rifles and I would start there.

[sparky45]

Thanks guys for the input. I'm leaning towards the 358429, just have to find a decent price for a mold. BTW, I paid LESS than half for my Rossi compared to the one that sold on Gunbroker.

[BACKTOSHOOTING]

Been shooting the RCBS 38-158 cm 357 mag with 14.5 gn 296 in mine and is quite accurate. 38 special with 5.5-6.0 gn unique has shot well also.
Just bought a NOE 360-168 kieth mold [mine drop at 172] and have not had a chance to work up loads for testing yet but should be very good also.
Steve

[marlin39a]

You're going to love that Rossi. I have the same case colored, Octagon, but with 24". I have been shooting the Lee 358-158-RF in 357 brass over 5.0 gr HP-38. Great out to 100 yds on Jacks. I did need to put a .450 front sight on it, as it did shoot low. Just cast a bunch of Lee 358-125-RF to try in it. It sure is a good cast shooter.

[huntrick64]

Using the info found here and there on the web, slick up the action. You will also learn a great deal about taking it apart and putting it back together. I have a M92 CCH with 24" oct barrel in 45 colt. When new, it was tight, rough, and ejected the cases into the next county. I slicked it up, filed off some of the rough casting areas inside, and "worked it in" one evening with white lithium grease while watching TV.

It is as smooth as butter and now feeds anything up to about .1690 OAL. I can catch the ejected cases in my right hand without moving a step. I seat at 1.665 and NEVER have a problem with it.

Congrats, you will have a new friend.

[BCRider]

I found that they feed both .38's and .357's just fine if you're willing to cycle the lever with a fast but smooth style. If you want it to handle like a Cowboy Action rifle where the guys flick the lever quick as a blink then stick with .357Mag casings.

Truncated cone and round nose flat points both worked just fine. I even found that the more cone like SWC's did fine as long as I wasn't using CAS like cycle speeds.

As huntrick mentions a spring kit and a little work with some polishing slip stones can slick the rifle up well. The mainspring swap reduces the trigger pull to a light but not hair trigger sort of pull. And replacing the stout ejector spring with the longer and softer one from the spring kit makes a HUGE degree of difference to the smoothness. For a general use rifle I would not switch out the lever detent catch spring though. The stock one is fine and the kit spring is so light that the lever will try to keep falling of its own weight when carrying the rifle.

A general topping off of the tooling marks throughout the action and deburring the edges is pretty simple. Keep in mind that you only want to take the crests off the tooling marks so the surface looks like mountains with flat plateaus on the crests. And again the most gains will come from smoothing and deburring the ejector. In particular there's a notch in the pin for the ejector spring that tends to catch on the spring collar. I got rid of that by forming the end of the retaining pin notch from square to ramped and slightly flared the collar with a countersink tool. With that the last trace of a catch in the cycle just as it closed went away. This last bit is one detail I have not seen online anywhere. So it may be that only certain rifles have this issue.