[303 hunter]

Yesterday,I picked up a Rossi M92 357 lever gun with 16" barrel. It is nicely finished,and pretty accurate. What are some pro's and cons of this rifle?

[lobo9er]

Cant wait to read through this thread I always wondered about these myself. good luck and congratulations on your new rifle.

[seaboss]

I have one in SS, 357 magnum with a 20' barrel.
Love the gun. Remove all the packing grease, and enjoy it!
Accurate, and very smooth lever action as well. Very happy with it

[BCRider]

The only weak spot on mine was the funky rear sight. The spring leaf was actually badly twisted so I had to bend it back straight. Then the notch was so high that it was shooting terribly high. I fixed that with the "peep" conversion shown below.

I don't take it out for long range plinking very often. But I kick myself for not doing more of this since when it does come out the rifle is a really good shooter that makes me look good.

Since you've shot yours already I'm guessing that you already like how it cycles. But if you get the urge to slick it up a little the work needed is really easy. It mostly amounts to deburring the edges with a small medium India sharpening stone and flattening the crests of the machining marks slightly. That and a lighter ejector spring and you'd be amazed at how much smoother the lever cycle feels.

And if you don't feel comfortable doing this sort of work it's only about an hour's worth of labour plus the spring kit from a gunsmith to do the basics and have it back together.

[303 hunter]

Which sight did you get? I like the idea of a peep sight. I know there's a company that specializes in the M92,but can't find it.

[dagger dog]

The Rossi is a great value.

If you shoot factory ammo it will probably function without a hitch. If you reload you will have to find a boolit design that will work with the COAL, you can fudge some but some boollt designs will cause feeding malfunctions, especially when trying to switch between 38 Special and 357 Magnum using the same boolit.

If it's new you need to pull the stock, and douch the innards with brake clean or GunScrubber to remove all the leftovers from the manufacturing process. Then give it a lube job.

Mine is a 45 Colt, after I did a detail strip and clean, I replaced the ejector spring to keep it from tossing my brass into the next county, replaced the plastic magazine follower, that will swell and bind, replaced the factory sights with a Marbles set.

It's slicker than snot on a doorknob, will feed the Lee RNFP,LSWC,RCBS 452-255 Winchester SilverTip, mixed in any order in the magazine, and put them all on a 4" steel target at 75 yds.

The Rossi 92's are keepers you just have to give it a little TLC, and it'll take care of you.

Stevesgunz.com is the Rossi place

[Virg461]

Love mine. Handy small package that delivers a wallop. .357 out of a rifle is a much different animal than out of a revolver. I've killed a couple of deer with it. Very slick rifle.

[BCRider]

303hunter, sorry that I forgot to show the picture of the mod I did to lower the sight and turn it into a sort of peep setup. Here it is below. As you can see it's a modification to the original. It's not as good as if it were a tang mount rear peep but it's worked out pretty well for what it is.

The work was performed with a set of jewelers files. The flat edge cut only one to deepen the original overly small "V" notch and then a round rat tail file to form the "C" shape shown. I kept checking the opening until I could see the front bead had a nice even amount of daylight around the bead without being too narrow to work with or so large and sloppy that it was hard to center the bead at first glance easily. Even with this lowering of the rear sighting point you can see that I still had to fully remove the stepped wedge and spring the leaf to sit the sight down tight onto the barrel. The other option, of course, would have been to just get a taller front sight. And at the time this was part of the plan. But this mod has worked out well enough for my use that I haven't bothered.

If you, or anyone else reading in, wants to copy this I can measure the inside diameter of the C as a guide for shaping this mod.

[BHP FAN]

I have the fancy fiddleback almost tiger striped ''Hartford'' in .45 Colt, and a plain Jane .357, with some nice wood under a mud brown finish. The .357 is almost as accurate as my 10/22, and I used it to help teach my son, niece, and nephew how to shoot.

[Valor35]

I also have a 357 magnum with a 20" barrel, SS, and I absolutely love it. It is extremely accurate out to 50 yards and a blast to shoot. The action is a little rough, so I will be working on that, replacing some springs and such.

[mdauben]

I know there's a company that specializes in the M92,but can't find it.


Steve's Gunz (http://stevesgunz.com/index.htm) :)

[sansone]

a few years ago I would have said get a Marlin 1894c..
but since the change in ownership I would take the Rossi :evil:

[mdauben]

a few years ago I would have said get a Marlin 1894c..

You can still find pre-remlin 1894C rifles, but unfortunatly the prices seem to be creaping up closer and closer to $1000. :(

At that price I'd chose the Rossi, tool

[ball3006]

Pros.........it is a nice rifle
Cons........you will burn through alot of ammo

enjoy............chris3

[content]

Hello friends and neighbors // Congrats,, great snag on a fine little rifle.

Mine cycles .357 of most any flavor well but prefers LRN when using .38s.

Hope you enjoy yours as much as your friends will! $$$

[greyling22]

pros: with a little work they can be slicked up better than a marlin. the 92 receiver is a trimmer and better handling package than the marlin. they're cheaper than a marlin and currently better made.

cons: poor wood and sights. 16" version will not hold enough bullets for the 10 round cowboy action stages. Significantly harder to slick up than a marlin. Aftermarket sight options are limited. stainless version only comes polished and needs to be dulled by brushing or blasting.


I don't know the thread pitch of the steves guns sight, but the skinner lo-pro is the same thing for 20 bucks cheaper.

[303 hunter]

I looked at Steve's Gunz website. He has the ghost ring rear sight for $30. Does anyone have experience with this sight?

[colorado_handgunner]

I am interested in this as well. Can anyone tell me what the max distance I could expect to shoot the 357 out of this at?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

[RPRNY]

357 carbine should be reliable out to 100 yds. With quality hand loading and bullet selection you could stretch it some but trajectory and terminal ballistics start to become an issue thereafter. Again, with good hand loading, you can go longer more consistently and effectively. Buffalo Bore and other +P factory ammo may also get you out there.

[Captain Capsize]

I have the 20" and love it. Had to make the exact same change to rear sight as BCRider. It shoots dead on at 100 yds. with this configuration. I should qualify dead on. With open sights I'm talking 3" group or bust a clay every time. Great fun gun and a handy brush gun.

[BCCL]

16" carbine with "whip" lever here, love it, very solid compact shooter!

[BCRider]

I've shot .357Mag rounds from my own Rossi '92 with good accuracy even out to 200. And I'm pretty sure it would not do that badly for plinking at reasonable size targets out even at 300. The trajectory might be a little rainbow like but what the heck? The muzzle velocity with the magnums is as high or higher than many of the classic black powder cartridge long range guns. So lobbing them out to even 300 if you use the right sort of sights and doing so with reasonable accuracy should be doable.

Would I want to shoot at a game animal at that distance? HELL NO! ! ! ! But paper and steel plates don't care.

[35 Whelen]

I shot a CAS match today at which there probably 6 - 8 Rossi 92's, .357's and .45 Colts. Jiminy Christmas I have never seen the likes of fiddling with rifles! Failures to feed mostly.

That being said, I have a 20" Rossi .357. I slicked it up to the point that it's very smooth and fast. It's a neat little rifle that I find myself throwing in the seat of the truck when I go to feed calves, etc. Mines pretty darned accurate too and I've even successfully lobbed a few rounds into my 200 yd. metal target. Problem with it is feeding issues when shooting .38's. It did fine at first, but after a few CAS matches and a few hundred rounds, it decided it didn't want to feed .38's. I started loading the ammo a little longer (1.560") and the feeding issues ceased, but it irritates me that it won't feed standard length .38's.

[bannockburn]

Another Rossi M92 fan with a 16" large loop lever carbine in .45LC. Excellent fit and finish with both the metal and the wood, with the action being very slick and light on the trigger.

[BCRider]

The feeding issue when shooting fast is a fact of life with the original Winchester design. I ran into the same thing with mine when used for cowboy action. It's also the reason why none of the very fastest CAS shooters use a '92 style rifle.

I'm now loading for my rifle with .357Mag cases and it's a LOT better. But previously I'd shimmed out the side guides and now they are a hair too tight to let the longer cases slip up easily so I need to remove one shim layer. I'm not quite about to give up on my '92 yet but if this last bit of tweaking doesn't make the jams a lot less frequent then I'm going to give up and get a '73 clone of some form.

[BCCL]

Does anyone else Rossi 92, eject spent cases like it's trying to send them to Mars????

Mine will even launch A-Zoom aluminum dummy rounds a good distance! :)

[Water-Man]

I've got the LSI/PUMA M92 version. 20"Octagon blue.

I haven't had any ejection problems with it.

[BCCL]

Oh mine ejects perfectly, never jammed or anything, it just ejects a little "forcefully"! :)

[rhinoh]

Are you moving the lever down more "forcefully" than needed?

[BCRider]

BCCL, the ejector spring inside the bolt assembly is hellishly stout on the Rossi. If you get a spring kit for the rifle the two that come with it are reduced power. main and ejector springs. It's that common an issue.

Back when I first slicked mine up to the first stage (learning as I go so I snuck up on the amount for each change :D) it still had enough oomph to send the .357Mag casings up and onto the roof of the farm house facade on our cowboy action bays. The folks watching this said that the casings were reaching a good 10 feet of height! ! ! ! I've since replaced the cut down ejector spring with a home made softer one and now it only spits them up about a foot or so higher than my head where they arc down and land on the brim of my hat... :D The one in the spring kit you can get from Steve's is about the same as the one I made.

[BCCL]

Thanks BCRider!

No rhinon, it does it even if you work the lever very slow, when it gets to the point where it ejects, it sends them flying. :)

[BCRider]

Rhinon, you're thinking that the ejector is a fixed pin/finger like on many other styles. But on the '92 it's actually a spring loaded part of the traveling bolt assembly that tensions the lower part of the case head and holds that tension until the lip of the casing clears the mouth of the chamber. Once that happens it's "PING!" up and out. It's not related to the bolt's travel speed at all.

BCCL, with the reduced power spring if you're ejecting loaded rounds then they do sort of dribble out rather than being tossed with verve. But in a way that's good too since they don't tend to fly away and make you search for them. Instead they only come out about a foot up and to the side if you're cycling them out at the reloading table.