What do you do to your new Rossi 92?

[Bill in Oregon]

I know a trip to Stevez Gunz was once considered mandatory, but the Rossi that Santa just gave me ( ) in .45 Colt is pretty smooth out of the box, and boy the wood and metal are nicely fitted.
I am leaning toward a Skinner sight for starters.

[4t5]

I guess Santa hasn’t found my house yet , but I am waiting to hear what everyone says about your new rossi , as I’m hoping to get one next year !

[JimT]

Shoot it. Put a thousand rounds through it and by that time if it needs anything else you will know it for sure!

And congratulations on a great Christmas gift!

[Bill in Oregon]

Thanks fellas. And if you need to give Santa some guidance, Grabagun in DFW has them for well under $500, and you get a Heritage .22 Rough Rider as the rebate. I've been watching Rossi prices for years and this is as affordable as I have seen a 92.

[Bill in Oregon]

For those who have put Skinner barrel peep sights on their Rossis, did you need to install the Skinner front sight as well? Which height? Much fitting involved? Skinner's Web site describes the Rossi dovetails as a bit wider than the normal 3/8.

[black river smith]

With the newer Rossi '92, the only thing I immediately changed was the plastic follower, with a metal one.

[rossim92]

I know a trip to Stevez Gunz was once considered mandatory, but the Rossi that Santa just gave me ( ) in .45 Colt is pretty smooth out of the box, and boy the wood and metal are nicely fitted.
I am leaning toward a Skinner sight for starters.

only problem my rossi in 357 magnum was it was ammo brand picky, it had extraction issues, after steve pulled his magic on it, it didn't care what i put in it.

[AJMD429]

.
I think Sixgun wraps them in meat and then attaches a rope, so he can use them as shark-bait...

(...actually I think he ships them to Turnbull for a complete color case-hardening and engraving... )

I replace the plastic magazine follower (just like in my Marlins) with a metal one, and I re-do the sights, depending on the barrel length.
- the 24" ones get a tang sight and a Lyman Globe front sight
- the 20" ones get a Williams FP receiver sight and a yellow or green Firesight front sight
- the 16" ones get a Marbles Bullseye rear sight and a 1/16" gold dot front sight

They all get some sort of sling swivels added, with the front either a magazine-clamp type or the band/forend gets drilled and tapped.

Occasionally I 'slick them up' with an emory cloth if there are problems.

[Old No7]

Dang it Bill...

Santa didn't find me yet either... You must have been really good (to yourself?!) this year.

Have fun with it!

Old No7

[.45colt]

I bought one used from a place online along time ago. a .357 mag, It cost $325.00 and as I got it it had all ready been worked over and needs nothing . runs like a clock. who ever had it must of been shooting SASS events.My Daughter is now it's caretaker. around seven years ago I bid on a new off the shelf 44-40 on Gun broker and got it for less than $400.00 shipped. It was very rough and the bolt would really tear up the brass when you ejected it. the brass would go into orbit .
Got ahold of Steve, picked up the video, spring kit and the stainless mag follower. The gun shipped with a plastic rod in the magazine to limit how many rounds it would hold. Momma went away one Saturday and I tore it apart. It's the only one I ever did and I had quite a time getting the ejector spring to stay in place when I was assembling the bolt. after looking at everything online and a zillion try's I finally did and got it back together. made all the difference in the world. the springs in that one should have been shipped to the railroad. I had a Marbles tang mounted receiver sight laying around . and now that rifle is a pleasure to use. .
The new ones I see look and feel way better.

[rossim92]

With the newer Rossi '92, the only thing I immediately changed was the plastic follower, with a metal one.

+1. i replaced the floppy safety with a rear peep sight

[mickbr]

I had a gunsmith put a rail on mine and have both a red dot and vortex scout scope I interchange. I also work the lever a bunch of times in front of the TV, maybe thousands to slick it up,and practice run dummies through it. Gun has a 1400 lumen tactical flashlight crudely taped to the mag tube with a remote pressure switch . I also removed the buttplate and added a wooden spacer for my long LOP.



Its about as rough and bubbarized as you can get but it runs very fast and handles any length 44special or mag( I have sold guns the same week I have bought them if they cannot run both) . Shoots around 2MOA with hornady factory 200XTP ammo at 2000fps, have taken hogs to 130+ yards with that.

[Crazy Horse]

Well, I would love to get that mickey mouse safety off the top of mine, but it isn't worth it to me to pay shipping cost to get it done and I sure could not do it myself.

[JimT]

Well, I would love to get that mickey mouse safety off the top of mine, but it isn't worth it to me to pay shipping cost to get it done and I sure could not do it myself.

Very simple to do.
On my first Rossi I just removed it, ground off the safety part and filed the top down.

From the article at
https://www.leverguns.com/articles/taylor/rossi.htm



The safety was removed from the top of the bolt and the bottom was ground off it with a bench grinder. Enough metal was removed so that even if it got turned somehow it could no longer block the firing pin.

Next, metal was removed off the top of the "plug" until it was down close to same height as the top surface of the breech bolt. It was then polished, reblued, and reinstalled.

Using a small pick the pretty red and green paint was taken off of the "S" and "F" on the breech bolt and these were reblued also.

All in all it does not look too bad. A tight fitting plug that is better finished will be made in the future.

(I never did that. I think it is still like in the photo.)

[JBowen]

I have an old Interarms pre-safety Rossi .357 20 inch carbine I bought used around 2001 or 2 for a backup rifle when I was shooting SASS. At that time I had never heard of Steve’s Gunz so I ordered a spring kit ( I think Lee??) from the Dillon monthly flyer for it. Before I installed the springs I smeared valve grinding compound on everything inside the moved and wore against something and worked the action a few evenings a few hundred times. Cleaned it out, installed the spring kit, took the detent spring and plunger out of the lever and left it out for a faster, smoother break-a-way opening of the lever. That really smoothed out everything real well and brass doesn’t fly 20 feet anymore.
Now that I don’t shoot SASS I wish I could find that lever detent plunger and spring to hold the lever closed tight.

[Scott Tschirhart]

Well, I would love to get that mickey mouse safety off the top of mine, but it isn't worth it to me to pay shipping cost to get it done and I sure could not do it myself.

Very simple to do.
On my first Rossi I just removed it, ground off the safety part and filed the top down.

From the article at
https://www.leverguns.com/articles/taylor/rossi.htm



The safety was removed from the top of the bolt and the bottom was ground off it with a bench grinder. Enough metal was removed so that even if it got turned somehow it could no longer block the firing pin.

Next, metal was removed off the top of the "plug" until it was down close to same height as the top surface of the breech bolt. It was then polished, reblued, and reinstalled.

Using a small pick the pretty red and green paint was taken off of the "S" and "F" on the breech bolt and these were reblued also.

All in all it does not look too bad. A tight fitting plug that is better finished will be made in the future.

(I never did that. I think it is still like in the photo.)

I own this gun now and it’s still the slickest Rossi ever!

[JimT]

I never had the courage or the patience to try to do another one.

[Bob Hatfield]

My new one I bought in 2021 was 10 times smoother and much better put together than the one I bought in 2000.

I squared the front bead to make it look like a flat square front sight with a little brass aiming square. Much better for old eyes than a bead.
Then I had to grind down the sight elevator because with my 200 grain XTP loads at 1800 fps I had to use the bottom notch, and the hump of the elevator was blocking my sight picture.

When I use a 44-mag load that mimics a 44-40 velocity round, I have to raise the sight elevator all the way to the top.

Bob

[COSteve]

I used Steve's DvD and parts to do three brand new Rossi .357 mags in 2009. Two were mine, a 20" carbine and a 24" rifle. The other rifle was for a friend and neighbor who shot mine and then just had to have one for himself. All three handled both .38 spl and .357 mag ammo out of the box with no issues. I followed Steve's instructions and after smoothing the actions, replacing the extractor spring, shortening the mag spring, replacing the plastic follower, lubing and then reassembling them, they all are slick as snot.

The rifles got tang sights, mine also got a Lyman globe front sight with Lee Shaver inserts. All of them originally got the safety removed and Steve's plug but a couple years ago I took the plug out of my carbine and added Steve's peep sight instead as I've found that peep sights work better for me than the semi-buckhorn rear sights. My two Rossis have north of 3K rds through each and both are a joy to use and go out on nearly every range trip as well as some woods walking in the Rockies.

[rossim92]

Well, I would love to get that mickey mouse safety off the top of mine, but it isn't worth it to me to pay shipping cost to get it done and I sure could not do it myself.

if i can do it, you can. order peep site from stevegunzs.com . replace plastic mag follower with a steel one from steve also. plenty of youtube videos show how to do it. easy peasy.

[Griff]

Get Steve's DVD, or scroll down to the Rossi 1892 section on Marauder's Rifle Tune-up Tips, and begin digesting. Or, like I did back in 1987, found a disassembly guide in my NRA book, took it apart, polished EVERYTHING inside it, deburred EVERYTHING, cut a couple or 3 coils off the ejector spring, and attempted to put back together a couple of times... finally figured out the key was putting a empty case under the extractor, pushing it down to compress the ejector spring and close the action to get the lever/bolt pin in place. The next two in 1988 & 1994 were EASY! Oh yeah, make sure the flat spring that activates the cartridge stop is facing the right way...

[Bill in Oregon]

Griff, I had forgotten all about Marauder. Thanks for that link.

[Scott Tschirhart]

I’m always on the lookout for the older Rossi rifles that had the huge saddle ring and no bolt mounted safety.

But in answer to your original question, shoot the heck out of it and sit and work the action during a good western like Winchester 73 or The Searchers.

[Bill in Oregon]

Ooh. It’s been years since I watched “The Searchers.” One of my favorite Duke movies and the screenplay scarcely deviates from the novel, which is compelling as well.

[ethang]

It's already been mentioned but... I have one Rossi I did the Steve's Gun treatment to, and one that I just cycled watching Westerns on TV... both are really freakin fantastic. As long as the rifle itself is put together from the factory correctly, either option works....

[oldebear1950]

I traded for two new ROSSI R 92s. One is the 38/357 stainless, with 16 inch barrel , and the other is the stainless 20 inch barrel 45 colt/454 casull.
I got two of the Stevez dvds, along with the stainless steel magazine follower, and the pins to replace the safety's.
My two granddads were old time town marshalls, during the oil boom of the 1920s and 1930s in Oklahoma. They carried 44-40 lever guns on a daily basis, one carried a Winchester, the other a Marlin.
The taught us to us lever guns as kids.
The also taught us the best safety is what is between your ears.
I am now am 74 now and been shooting lever guns since I was 10 years old

[Jeff H]

I've not posted much here in a while, but wanted to share what I discovered of the "new" Rossi 92s - as of YESTERDAY.

I had a 16" 92 in 357 that I bought in 2009, which had every possible thing wrong with it that could be wrong with one, except that the bore was excellent and the butt-plate did not require any adjustments. Literally EVERY other part on that gun required work. Aside from the machining being rather crude, the assembly must have been done with a two-pound hammer as the only tool. It took me a YEAR to get it running right, but, boy did I get an education on 92s. My brother has that one now, because he needed something like that. It runs like poop through a goose, but it was an expensive overhaul in terms of time and frustration.

Fast-forward to NOW. I've been looking passively for another, but have been very apprehensive about taking on such a project again. I found one for $600 new and jumped on it. I literally drove slower and slower to my FFL to pick it up, dreading what I'd gotten myself into for so much more money than the first one cost.

While he was calling in the check, I got it out and looked it over.

Man, oh MAN! What a difference in how they machine and assemble these NOW! Night and day difference. The first one looked like someone made it using rocks. This new one - the machining and fit/finish is impeccable!

Don't get me wrong - it is very STIFF, very TIGHT, but it's smooth - no grit, no grinding, no hitches. The trigger is atrocious, but easily corrected. The loading gates are still made to deny entrance of a bulldozer, but also easily corrected. The pick-a-ninny "rail" is very cleanly machined, but so cleanly machined that it's like a carbide-tipped saw-blade. Even the little peep sight on it looks good - better than any Williams I've handled in many decades. The magazine follower even looks like anodized aluminum instead of plastic!

It will definitely need trigger-work, attention to the loading gate tension and easing of many edges associated with that function and maybe a lighter ejector spring. Yeah the spent cases are jut shy of being lethal projectiles - STILL. But even the ejector looks precisely machined, while my first one looked like someone crafted it without the benefit of steel tools.

Without having torn it down yet, I'm already impressed and think that this one will take no more than the "usual" I'd have to do to any other new gun.

I never replied to this thread before, because the list of stuff I had to do to my first one could take a book to cover. I think the newer ones are looking pretty decent.

EDIT to ADD: The stupid safety? It's so nicely machined on this new 92 that you don't even notice it. It does NOT stick out and catch your eye, it is positive, definite and STAYS in the position you choose (OFF, for me), but the old one flopped around, was ugly as sin and didn't even WORK! I could fire the gun with the safety ON. This one is easy enough to switch "off" and forget about.

[Ysabel Kid]

Congrats Bill!

I just forwarded the GrabAGun link to a friend I've got interested in leverguns. Pricing is north of $500 again, but still a good deal.