Bullet for the Rossi M92

[Dorf]

Has anyone tried the Lee 358-158 RF bullet in the .38 Spl/.357 Rossi M92. It appears to be a bevel based 158 grain item. I would think that it would be the "cat's meow" in the little carbine as I notice that loading semiwadcutters (Lyman 358477) that the abrupt shoulder or one side of the nose will occasionly "hang up" entering the magazine tube and I think the "RF" configuration would slide right in. I sure would appreciate any info that anyone has concerning the "feeding" and resulting accuracy using the Lee bullet. I have no trouble feeding cartridges from the magazine into the chamber-- just feeding through the loading gate into the magazine. Thx, Stan

[Ben]

The 158 RF may work just fine, I don't know. I shoot an Accurate 130 gr.( see photo below ) Runs through mine like water going through screen wire.

I shot my Stainless , Rossi 92 , 38 / 367 Mag. today at 40 yards rapid fire.

This is a full magazine tube , shot as fast as I could work the lever and line up the sights.

While I realize that this won't win anything at Camp Perry, it will certainly be deadly medicine for the " Bad Guys " out there !

The load was :

38 Spec. case
Accurate 135 gr. cast plain base ( Sized 358 " )
4.0 grs. Promo
CCI Small Pistol Primer

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/download-4.jpg

The contour on these bullets allows some super smooth 100% flawless feeding through the 92' . The " flat " on the end of the nose is also good for safety in the tubular magazine :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/006-40-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/002-63.jpg

[runfiveslittlegirl]

the lee will do fine.
so will the rcbs, the lyman, magma, saeco, whatever has rnfp at the end of it's designation.

[knifemaker]

Dorf;
I bought that Lee 6 banger 358-158 mold about 6 months ago for use in my Cimarron arms Colt clone revolver and my Rossi 1892 in 357 mag caliber. As for feeding in the Rossi, it feeds slick as butter even using one finger to work the lever. In the revolver it gave great accuracy in the 3 inch barrel and no leading. Here is the problem I ran into with using that boolit in my Rossi that has a 20 inch barrel.

The lee 358-158 has a single VERY SHALLOW lube groove. Since I wanted to develope a close range brush deer load, I went to a almost max safe load of using 14.5 gr. of 2400 powder. My test 25 yard groups ran 3-5 inches for several groups. Heck at 75-100 yards I could miss a deer complety with that poor accuracy. I noticed a silver-gray wash in the lands & grooves of the last 3-4 inches on my rifle barrel. This indicated to me that the boolit was running out of lube in the longer rifle barrel causing groups to open up.
My mold drops boolits at .361 dia. My rifle gooves run .3575 and I sized at .460 and used White label 2500+ lube. On a different caliber rifle I have exceeded 2200 fps with the 2500+ lube and no leading and perfect preformance, so I am sure it is not a lube problem except for possibly running out of lube due to that VERY SHALLOW SINGLE LUBE GROOVE that Lee made in the mold.

I would look for another RNFP mold in 158-170 gr. that has a better lube groove if you want a 100 yard deer load that will start out in the 1600-1700 fps range for good stopping power and accuracy.

[Dorf]

Sounds as if you and I are after the same goal. However I load the Lyman 358477 with 13.5 gr. or #2400 as my all-around .357 load. Gives me 1230 fps out of both a Ruger Blackhawk and a S&W 681 w/a 4" bbl. Guess I'll have to go to either the 358156 bullet (even though I dislike the inconvenience of the gas check) or the Keith 357429 (?) either one of which should give more lubrication but back to the shoulder of the semi-wadcutter. How about the 170 gr Ranchdog item from NOE? Anybody here tried that one. BTW my M92 has that same 20" bbl and pops those 13.5 #2400 loads out @ an average of 1703 fps. according to my PACT chrono. As usual, any and all info greatly appreciated. Thx, Stan

[Baja_Traveler]

I shoot the 158gr Snakebite Greasewagon out of my 24" Rossi: http://www.biglube.com/BulletMolds.aspx?ItemID=ee788c75-7068-4a70-a6f0-6d4ee38b0030

Perfect feed every time, and a nice lube star on the muzzle - this boolit will never run out of lube going down the barrel...

[knifemaker]

Dorf I do not think you can go wrong in a lever rifle with any Ranchdog mold or copy. Ranchdog designed his molds for reliable feeding in lever action rifles and they have a rep of being accurate. I do not have the RAnchdog in .357 cal. but do have his 350 gr. in 45/70 cal. and it is the most accurate cast bullet in my Marlin 1895 LTD-V.

[rintinglen]

Dorf, My Rossi dotes on the Lyman 358-665 which is a near duplicate of the Lee version. I have not run it fast, but I think that the deeper lube groove and flat base might be advantageous for your purposes. 4.5 grains of WW-231 has been excellent in 38 brass, while 5.5 grains of Unique has proven to be acceptably accurate in .357 cases. My hunting load is the RCBS 38-162 SWC gc at 1700 fps, 15.7 grains H-110.

[Jeff H]

I have been using the LEE 358158 RF, 358158 TL SWC and 358125 RF in a 16" Rossi for a few years now and they all function well and are accurate. I load the RDO 359-190 in .38 SPL cases for "cat sneeze" loads too but that one's too long in Mag cases. The Lyman 358429 is too long in mine with Mag cases too, so I use them with .38 cases.

The three LEE moulds mentioned have been excellent in my Rossi though and the 125 RF seems to shoot best.

[runfiverun]

you don't really run out of lube.
you need to modify the lube you are using to "work" longer [give up oils], but you didn't run out.
I'd about bet you had a little "skid" area right in front of where the antimonial wash started
at the relaxation point of the boolit where the lube stopped flowing under pressure.

[donhuff]

Stan,

Don't know if you like to work on your guns or not but, I use a Cratex disc on a dremel tool and go in through the mag tube hole with an in and out motion to smooth off all the edges and corners leading into the mag tube. Makes em load almost anything.

[donhuff]

I have been using the LEE 358158 RF, 358158 TL SWC and 358125 RF in a 16" Rossi for a few years now and they all function well and are accurate. I load the RDO 359-190 in .38 SPL cases for "cat sneeze" loads too but that one's too long in Mag cases. The Lyman 358429 is too long in mine with Mag cases too, so I use them with .38 cases.

The three LEE moulds mentioned have been excellent in my Rossi though and the 125 RF seems to shoot best.

Jeff,
Mine did not feed the 358429 at all until I took a file to the cartridge stop on the carrier. Filed a few strokes at a time and would reassemble and check, until it would feed with a little room to spare. I also took off a little metal from the bottom side of the barrel where the bullet nose swings up, to gain a few thousands of clearance there.

Also, with the gunslinger ejector spring, the ejector will "give in" to the cartridge easier and make feeding much easier.

[Dorf]

Stan,

Don't know if you like to work on your guns or not but, I use a Cratex disc on a dremel tool and go in through the mag tube hole with an in and out motion to smooth off all the edges and corners leading into the mag tube. Makes em load almost anything.
Don--I think you've hit on the answer. I've looked at that area in the action and wondered if there was enough "meat" there to do the work you speak of. I'll have to give it a try and thx for the tip. Stan

[Jeff H]

Jeff,
Mine did not feed the 358429 at all until I took a file to the cartridge stop on the carrier. Filed a few strokes at a time and would reassemble and check, until it would feed with a little room to spare. I also took off a little metal from the bottom side of the barrel where the bullet nose swings up, to gain a few thousands of clearance there.

Also, with the gunslinger ejector spring, the ejector will "give in" to the cartridge easier and make feeding much easier.


Mine will actually make it from mag tube to the carrier and the carrier will lift OK. Going from the carrier into the chamber is where it gets hung up - too steep an angle. I did some slow and careful tuning on rear edges of the grooves in the guide rails and almost made it. I had to do that just to get some others to cycle. I should mention that I won the "kit gun" prize with mine and it wouldn't do anything right straight out of the box.

Did you have to do anything besides removing material from the cartridge stop?

My ejector spring came out of a drawer full of springs collected over many years. If I could balance a bowl on my head while shooting, I wouldn't have to pick up any brass!:D

[donhuff]

The thing with the gunslinger ejector spring is that it is so weak that it lets the ejector retract(?) fully into the bolt when it hits the back of a round when going forward (with the bolt). Giving a little more room for a long cartridge to get lined up. Moving the cartridge back on the carrier (like after filing the cartridge stop) gets the rim back and up where it contacts the ejector on the two sloped parts (I think the 357 has slopes on it, if not forgive me. I have 4 R92s). Polish those "ramps" or radius on the bottom of the ejector, so they will slide easily when they contact a rim making the ejector retract and getting the face of the bolt up there to push on the rim. Seems like if the sloped part is pushing on the rim, it is giving the cartridge a downward force along with the forward force. Polish the whole front side of the ejector so that the cartridge has nothing to snag up on. Also polish the guides where the rim goes through them. I can run the 358429 at 1.675-1.680 OAL but 1.670 work real easy.

I size to .359 for my Ruger BH and the Rossi, and that was a problem cause SOME of my brass was a little thicker than others and the rossi chamber was a little on the tight side, starting about half way in the chamber. Some rounds would "drag" when closing the lever. It would always close, but took a little force to do it, and I wanted it to be real EASY! I made a "lap"(?) to just barely fit the chamber, I'm not a machinist but I do have a hobby lathe. I put the steel slug/lap into the chamber with a little fine valve lapping compound on it, and opened the chamber just a tad. Then polished it with mothers on a rag and a drill. Also, fill the thing full of toothpaste and sit down to watch a movie and work the action about 1000 times, clean it out fill it up and do it again! You wont believe the difference that will make. This works best with the strong stock springs, then after cleaning it out, install the gunslinger spring kit. If my eyelash had a thumb, I swear I think I could work the action by blinking!

I know what you mean about the brass. Several times I have to check my hat to see if any brass got stuck up there LOL. But the worst one is when it goes down your collar behind your neck, easy to get it down to your belt but then it goes to "THE CRACK".......I try to remember to wear shorts with loose leg holes, so I can get one out in a hurry!

[donhuff]

Don--I think you've hit on the answer. I've looked at that area in the action and wondered if there was enough "meat" there to do the work you speak of. I'll have to give it a try and thx for the tip. Stan

Oh yeah, plenty of "meat", thing about the Cratex is that it don't take off hardly anything. It will round sharp corners and edges though. Plenty of meat to do that. But do not use a regular grinding bit. They are too coarse and will only make matters worse with radial scratches. Cratex is not a dremel product so you have to get them elsewhere.

Also did you clip the magazine spring? I take the plug out of the end and let the spring stick out. I cut the spring at about 3 inches past the end of the mag tube.