Rossi Wizard

[Throckmorton]

I believe u made a very good decision there,the buff classics are very good shooters.

[helice]

I picked up a Rossi 44 Mag single shot a few years ago from CDNN. It's a stainless model with a black painted wood stock. That got sanded down to reveal why it was painted black. The ugliest piece of wood I've seen on steel.
My first shoots were 240 J-words at 50 yards. Every one of them keyholed at least the ones that hit the target. With fat lead slugs it does pretty well though so I've kept it. I couldn't sell this to the unsuspecting public anyway. Of late I mounted a 4x scope. We'll see!!?

[Ashdavely]

I purchased a Wizard in 223 and had a chance to test it out today. I was using a Simmons 4x scope shooting at 50 yards. I was probably getting 2" groups with jacketed 55gr bullets but I am partially blaming the scope and mounts.

I also tried a 7.62x39 barrel on the Wizard. Some rounds would FTF (not fire), the hammer would fall and the primer would have an indentation but no bang. Sometimes a second attempt would work, but on a few rounds no luck. This happened on about 25% of my rounds. My ammunition was handloaded using Winchester brass and CCI No. 200 primers. I also tried some Wolf ammunition just as a test. All FTF on the first try but worked the second time. I knew Wolf had hard primers and expected them to fail the first time. The accuracy was not terrible, some 1" groups and some 2" groups. I did not have any FTF issues with my 223 reloads.

Additionally the 7.62x39 barrel would not completely extract the spent rounds from the chamber. It would lift them out far enough to grab with my fingers while the 223 barrel would correctly pop them completely out. It appears the 7.62x39 barrel (and receiver) will probably be making a trip for service. I'm hoping these issues can be resolved as the 7.62x39 barrel was my purpose for buying the wizard in the first place.

There were a few other things of significance about the Wizard. It has a plastic trigger guard and sights. Mine had a very light trigger pull, probably 2 lbs. The wood stock did not appear to have any kind of sealant on it. It was just flat stained wood. If I get the FTF issues resolved it will probably put a few light coats of tru-oil on it.

Someone here had mentioned having trouble removing the front grip, I didn't have this problem. It was pretty easy to pull off.

[calkar]

Rossi's do not completely eject like a Handi rifle. I had to do a chamber cast, custom fit the brass and fire lap the bore/throat and then my GF's Rossi .243 is still just a 1 1/2 m.o.a rifle. For the $200 I paid for it Im happy. The throats are huge and rough. You must enjoy tinkering to get the most out of a Rossi. I know if she would shoot the 20g barrel once she would never fire it again, so that barrel is just for decoration. It kicks like a mule.

[tacklebury]

Ashdavely: Make sure you pull the trigger completely to the rear. Many times the FTF is because the transfer bar isn't completely up in position. This is quite common on H&R's too with light triggers. It seems counter intuitive for groups, but you have to get used to following through on your trigger squeeze with this style hammer-bar system.