New Rossi Lever cleaning

[Airman Basic]

Can't seem to find the thread about initial cleaning with a solvent? sprayed into the action. Brake cleaner maybe?

[retiredPO]

Its probably here, but go to Rossi Rifleman site.... It has it in spades,... and specifically had tons of help with Rossi
great supplement to this site. The site is run by Ranch Dog...

[Pb2au]

You will want to use non-chlorinated brake cleaner.
Remove the buttstock, and cover the forearm carefully. That stuff will remove the finish in a heartbeat.
When you have the stock off, open the action and spray out the inside thoroughly. Cycle the action about ten times, then repeat spraying out the action. Cycle again about ten times, then spray again. You will see quite a bit of packing grease and what not clear from the action. When the action is sprayed clean, lube it up with your favorite lube and go shoot it.
Most cycle function issues in the Rossi's in the beginning are due to goo and crud in the receiver.

While you have the gun down for cleaning;
Remove the plug from the end of the magazine and remove the spring and plastic follower. Thoroughly clean the spring itself and the magazine tube.
Most of the time the magazine spring is too long and puts too much feeding pressure on the cartridges. What you want is when the spring and follower is inserted into the magazine tube, about three cartridge lengths of spring protruding from the end of the tube. If it much greater than this, trim it back a bit. This will stop cartridges from forcing their way past the cartridge stop in the receiver.
Let us know if you need anything else.

[donhuff]

I know it's a little off subject, but what's the deal with recommending "NON"chlorinated solvent. Is there a chlorinated solvent? Is it bad for the gun in some way? I'm just curious as I see this a lot.

Trimming back the magazine spring also makes it a lot easier to get the magazine full of bullets, without bleeding so much. Next thing to mod is the loading gate spring.

[Pb2au]

Two reasons to use non chlorinated
1) It is less aggressive in the event it gets on plastic parts.
2) From a health aspect, it is less noxious to the human user, specifically the fumes.

[Airman Basic]

Thanks for that. I love the gun, but sometimes cycling the action, I get a "crunchy" feel, for lack of a better word.

[Pb2au]

Thanks for that. I love the gun, but sometimes cycling the action, I get a "crunchy" feel, for lack of a better word.

Yup, it needs a cleaning for sure!
What caliber is yours chambered in?

[Airman Basic]

Yup, it needs a cleaning for sure!
What caliber is yours chambered in?
357, 16 inch SS. Shoots great, just needs a little TLC, I think.

[donhuff]

Two reasons to use non chlorinated
1) It is less aggressive in the event it gets on plastic parts.
2) From a health aspect, it is less noxious to the human user, specifically the fumes.

OK, thanks. Thought it might be something like that.

[fecmech]

Thanks for that. I love the gun, but sometimes cycling the action, I get a "crunchy" feel, for lack of a better word.
If that "crunchy" feel is just as you are closing the lever it has to do with the ejector spring and collar. The spring is a copy of the early satellite launch springs(kidding) and the ejector shaft that the collar slides on is rough as a cob. If you go to Ace Hardware and get a similar sized spring with wire diameter about half the original and polish the shaft the collar slides on, things will improve dramatically.

[phonejack]

I took mine apart, should have replaced the cartridge lifter and ejector spring but, I didn't . What I did do was ,use a jewelers file and fine whet stones to remove burrs ,slick up sliding surfaces. There was goo in there only a take down of parts would let me get to.

[Pigboat]

This has been a very informative thread for me. I'm picking up a new one today (45Colt, 24" octagon barrel).
I have a couple cans of Birchwood Casey gun scrubber laying around...will it do as good of a job as the brake cleaner?

[Pb2au]

This has been a very informative thread for me. I'm picking up a new one today (45Colt, 24" octagon barrel).
I have a couple cans of Birchwood Casey gun scrubber laying around...will it do as good of a job as the brake cleaner?

It should work just as well. The spraying is what we are after, so the cleaner can flush out as much crud as possible.

[huntrick64]

If your not wanting to take it down and do the normal cleaning, buffing, polishing, and ejector spring reduction, go ahead and flush out really well with the brake cleaner, then spray the action really heavy with white lithium grease. I mean it needs to be packed in there! Get comfortable and work the action for about 10-15 minutes straight. Then clean it again, lube it and you'll be good to go. I actually went ahead and broke mine down and did the whole polishing thing. My magazine spring was already good since I had the 24" model and not the carbine. I did however have to reduce the ejector spring tension because that thing would throw empties so far you would actually lose brass. I do not like cutting loops off of springs to make them lighter. If you do that you change the dynamics of the spring and they become very "length sensitive". What I did was found a punch that would go inside the ejector spring tightly. I chucked the punch into my drill and turned the outside of the spring down using my belt sander wile spinning the spring against it. I had to do a few test fits, but was able to tune that thing so the empties come up and to the right rear just a little. I can actually catch them mid-air with the same hand that I use to work the lever. If I chose to let em fly they are all laying just to the right of my right foot.

Good luck and have fun. Working on these guns can be a rewarding experience and you will end up with a buttery-smooth gun.

[donhuff]

Hey Airman, I have one of those old cans of powder. Isn't the lid neat, the way it works I mean.

u-PRESS-it95111

[BCRider]

Having slicked up a Rossi recently for a fellow cowboy action shooter I can say that the insides are not gritty. Just oily. So hosing it out with a cleaner won't do much for you.

What the rifle really needs to sing is to swap out the springs for a lighter spring kit. Not only the ejector but also the mainspring. Then go over all the edges with a fine slip stone to take off all the burrs. Pay particular attention paid to the ejector which REALLY needs it.

Unlike my own from 4 years back this recent model has really nice machining other than the edge burrs. But if for some reason yours has fairly coarse tooling marks on the flat surfaces then some polishing with the same slip stone to form flat and even "plateaus" of the crests of the marks will aid in a smoother feel as well.

Do this fairly basic work and you'll be rewarded with as slick a lever as you could hope to find and a nice light and crisp trigger feel.

[Airman Basic]

Hesitate to take it apart to grind on mating edges. It shoots fine now and I dang sure ain't no brain surgeon. Couldn't repeatedly working the action, dry or live fire, accomplish this particular mission, without me worrying about leftover parts? (Iron Mule, I'm getting closer to bothering you about this)

[donhuff]

airman,

Yes, you are correct. Work the action 500-1000 times, and you will see a big difference in the way it feels. Flush it out and re-oil a time or two while doing this to get rid of anything that it might work loose. I do this while holding the trigger down so that the hammer gets worn in too.

When you get brave enough to tackle it, I suggest the gunslinger spring kit be installed. It will make the gun super smooth.

[fecmech]

Hesitate to take it apart to grind on mating edges.
Not really any need to grind on anything. Simply changing or lightening 3 springs will make it feel like a different gun. As I mentioned previously #1 the ejector spring(gets rid of the "crunchy" close feeling). A lighter mainspring decreases cocking effort and slightly lightens the trigger. Finally a lighter trigger return spring lightens the trigger pull dramatically. Those 3 springs are the key.

[snaketail]

I bought the 'gunslinger' spring kit from Brownells and replaced the springs in my Rossi 92. The trigger went from "heavy" to "WOW! Is this too light?" I didn't change the ejector spring - it was OK anyway, but I did save the springs if I ever decide to change it. While I had it apart I cleaned up the innards of the rifle - metal shavings, rough edges, etc. The only trouble I had was putting the pin back into the lever/bolt hole - I as a bit worried about pounding it back in - but it did take some force to get it back in.

Haven't shot it since the operation - cold, snow, more cold, snow again tonight, howling wind, work, wife, cold, snow, howling wind: I've been told this will all end March 1 and there will be wonderful days ahead. Unless we get a freak warm-day I won't have an results to report for another month. The trigger went from "heavy/sluggish" to about 2.5 pounds when I changed the springs.

Michael

[pietro]

While I had it apart I cleaned up the innards of the rifle - metal shavings, rough edges, etc.

The only trouble I had was putting the pin back into the lever/bolt hole - I as a bit worried about pounding it back in - but it did take some force to get it back in.




The lever/bolt pin should slide in easily, and not need pounding - didja place an empty cartridge case on the boltface, under the extractor, to hold everything in alignment when the bolt was moved into the pin removal/insert position (open about an inch) ?


Any Rossi M92 owner, leery about disassembling & tuning their rifle, might seriously considering obtaining this "how-to" DVD : www.stevesgunz.com (http://www.stevesgunz.com)


.

[Pb2au]

Having slicked up a Rossi recently for a fellow cowboy action shooter I can say that the insides are not gritty. Just oily. So hosing it out with a cleaner won't do much for you.

What the rifle really needs to sing is to swap out the springs for a lighter spring kit. Not only the ejector but also the mainspring. Then go over all the edges with a fine slip stone to take off all the burrs. Pay particular attention paid to the ejector which REALLY needs it.

Unlike my own from 4 years back this recent model has really nice machining other than the edge burrs. But if for some reason yours has fairly coarse tooling marks on the flat surfaces then some polishing with the same slip stone to form flat and even "plateaus" of the crests of the marks will aid in a smoother feel as well.

Do this fairly basic work and you'll be rewarded with as slick a lever as you could hope to find and a nice light and crisp trigger feel.

When I initially stripped mine down, I found a fair amount of particulate matter inside the receiver. It was clearly dirt from transport mixed with a fair amount of other random metal particles.
As for break cleaner not cleaning out oil residue and grease, that is not true. It is a degreaser by definition and does a nice job of breaking its grip on the metal parts and flushing it out of the receiver. A blast of compressed air after is also beneficial.
The end game with Rossi products is that the price point is handsome do to the fact that they are simply not hand fitted. To that point, it is not uncommon to find machining burrs on the edges of the bolt and other components. When these are encountered, it is enough to use a quality stone or emery cloth to break them off.

[BCRider]

Oh, there's no doubt that the brake cleaner will clean away the oil. That's exactly what it's intended to perform. Sorry if my reply suggested such a thing. Mind you the cleaner does such a good job of stripping away all the oil and any gunk that then we need to spray it down and work some oil back into all the parts.

Finding gritty oil in the action just shows how fast and slapdash these things are put together. Neither mine from 4 years back nor my friends from a 6 months back had any grit in the action. But yeah, if I felt grit on my finger from inside the guts I'd have hosed it down pronto as well.

Airman, yes working the action a lot will do most of what I described. It'll simply take longer :D.

The spring kit is still worth it though. I'd say 90% of the upgraded feel for the TOTAL work comes from the spring kit alone. It is hellishly tricky to get the longer and softer ejector spring to load up though. But luckily there's lots of great You Tube videos showing how an empty casing or a snap cap can be used as a trick tool to aid in getting the little varmint to stay in place while the lever to bolt pin is put back in.

The deburring most certainly does not involve any grinding. Instead it's done with a small knife sharpening stone. And a fine to very fine grade slip stone at that. Or as BigRed says above it can be done with some very fine grit emery cloth. Another option is some 400 to 600 grit silicon dioxide "Wetordry" sandpaper folded around something like a little popsicle stick. No files and certainly nothing that spins under it's own power with a grinding stone should be used in such work.

Very little metal is removed in this sort of polishing work. And with the fine or extra fine grade slip stone or the fine grit abrasives suggested it takes 4 to 8 passes over the edge even to reach that point. So there's a lot of control over the process. If you've sharpened a knife on a hard fine stone to give that final smoothly honed edge then you've done the same sort of work and know that it's not a fast process. For the work around the bolt and ejector the goal is to just make the corner edges that feel rough and catchy to the finger become something smooth with a very fine silvery line that isn't even as wide as a fine pencil line.

Does that sound a little more surgical? And perhaps not as damaging?

You Tube has videos of 92 strip down and assembly procedures. If someone can follow those well enough to put in a spring kit I'd suggest that it's not that much tougher to rub a fine ceramic like stone over the edges to smoothen them up. If the videos are just confusing then it's still worth having a smith simply put in the spring kit. And if the smith is in the rifle anyway pay the extra $20 to at least do the very basics of the deburring. For general plinking it doesn't need the whole cowboy action slicking up process. But with probably 90% of the improvement coming from the spring kit and another 6 or 7% from the simplest deburring around the ejector we can be most of the way from factory rough to cowboy action slicked for just the cost of disassembly and re-assembly with the spring kit and basics.

Cost wise for a smith to do this work I can't see the charge being more than the $25 for the springs and one hour of shop time for the install and perform the most basic de-burring. Based on typical rates these days I'm guessing that the bill for this sort of basic work and springs would be $100 to $120?

Now I've tinkered and tuned stuff like this all my life through one hobby or another. To me it's as natural as breathing. It's also something I greatly enjoy and spend a lot of time learning about. But I can see where someone that hasn't had that sort of exposure to these procedures would find it a daunting prospect. And for those folks we have car mechanics and gunsmiths. For those that are semi handy sometimes it just takes a little de-mystifying to get them to realise that there are tools that more easily provide the sort of control needed to do this sort of fine work. Hopefully my posts help out such folks to learn and tackle this sort of work.

The stone I used for de-burring the edges on the last 92 for my friend was this one;

http://lansky.com/index.php/products/ultra-fine-hone/

It's a replacement stone for their knife sharpening kit. I broke the stone away from the plastic holder to make it better for hand work. Another good option for this sort of work is the natural black hard Arkansas;

http://lansky.com/index.php/products/natural-black-hard-arkansas-hone/