Mossyrock
Member
All too often today, people get wrapped up in the "tactical" aspect of shooting and forget that shooting can be fun! Remember plinking? Just shooting at a stick floating down the creek? How about shooting at a boulder on the side of a hill several hundred yards away just to see how long it takes you to connect with Kentucky windage and Tennessee elevation? Every once in a while, it's a good idea just to step back, relax and do some plinkin'. The only problem is that shooting a .22, to me, is like watching paint dry...it just bores me to death! That brings us to today's subject. The rifle you see here is the product of watching too many John Wayne westerns as a kid. I still get a kick out of watching "Stagecoach" and seeing The Ringo Kid twirl-cock his loop-levered Winchester 92. Several years ago, Rossi made a run of rifles similar to the Duke's. I don't know how well they sold, but you sure don't see them very often. Since I couldn't find one, I decided to have one built. This particular rifle started out as a standard EMF 20" saddle ring carbine in .45 Colt. The current EMF Hartford model 92s are made by Rossi to their specs. The early EMF imports were made by Armi San Marcos, but they had some problems with quality control. Anyway, I had this one gone through by Steve Young of Steve's Gunz www.stevesgunz.com in Port Arthur, TX. Steve is well known in the SASS community as being one of the best 92 tuners in the business. I had him smooth my rifle up with a competition action tune that produced a very smooth operating action and a great trigger pull. I also had him shorten the barrel to 16.25" and install the loop lever.
I just took delivery on Thursday afternoon (After standing in my FFL's shop for five hours with my nose pressed against the front door glass waiting for the Fed Ex guy...) and by dark that night I had run around 100 rounds through it. All rounds fired were my handloads consisting of either a 250 gr cast SWC over 9 grains of Unique, or a 325 gr LBT over 22 grains of 296. All rounds fed very smoothly...in fact, this rifle will feed empty cases without a hitch! I never did bother to bench this thing and put it on paper, so I couldn't tell you how it will group. All I know is that is shot exactly to point of aim at 50 yards and it will shoot "minute of floating stick". The 325 grain loads are a hoot to shoot! They have a little stomp to them. :shock: (325 grain bullet at around 1,400 fps from a 5 pound rifle.) In fact, after watching me shoot them, my Dad declined to drop the hammer on one. In his defense, he just had his rotator cuff rebuilt 9 weeks ago, and this is the first rifle he has fired since his surgery. I almost wondered if I would be able to get it away from him!
If you want a great fun gun, take a look at a 92 Winchester copy and consider having Steve Young slick it up. I think you'll be a happy customer....I am!
And to answer the unasked question, yes, it can be "twirl-cocked". And yes, it WILL feed ammo like that without throwing them out of the ejection port during the loading cycle. Did I try this with loaded rounds? Nope...that's what dummy rounds are for!!
I just took delivery on Thursday afternoon (After standing in my FFL's shop for five hours with my nose pressed against the front door glass waiting for the Fed Ex guy...) and by dark that night I had run around 100 rounds through it. All rounds fired were my handloads consisting of either a 250 gr cast SWC over 9 grains of Unique, or a 325 gr LBT over 22 grains of 296. All rounds fed very smoothly...in fact, this rifle will feed empty cases without a hitch! I never did bother to bench this thing and put it on paper, so I couldn't tell you how it will group. All I know is that is shot exactly to point of aim at 50 yards and it will shoot "minute of floating stick". The 325 grain loads are a hoot to shoot! They have a little stomp to them. :shock: (325 grain bullet at around 1,400 fps from a 5 pound rifle.) In fact, after watching me shoot them, my Dad declined to drop the hammer on one. In his defense, he just had his rotator cuff rebuilt 9 weeks ago, and this is the first rifle he has fired since his surgery. I almost wondered if I would be able to get it away from him!
If you want a great fun gun, take a look at a 92 Winchester copy and consider having Steve Young slick it up. I think you'll be a happy customer....I am!
And to answer the unasked question, yes, it can be "twirl-cocked". And yes, it WILL feed ammo like that without throwing them out of the ejection port during the loading cycle. Did I try this with loaded rounds? Nope...that's what dummy rounds are for!!
I also think BIG bore rifles can be fun. A heavy loaded 45-70 or .416 Rigby can be a BLAST (pun intended) for plinking at bricks and boulders. It just doesn't take as many rounds for the "fun meter" to peg out.... 
