Trouble with Rossi Model 92's, and dealing with warranty...

[GregT]

When I first joined this group a couple of months ago, I had just purchased a Rossi Model 92 (24" Octagon barrel, caliber .45 Colt, case colored action). A beautiful rifle. Then, upon firing it I discovered it had a bad chamber. Then it quit ejecting. Nothing I could do but send it down to Miami to Rossi warranty. Was sitting there a month and having heard nothing, I phoned and got past the receptionist and into customer service. Told them I needed to know what was going on. They did a quick "conference" and decided the rifle would be replaced. That was fine with me. They could give me no timeframe of when it would be done. So, figuring they would replace it and all would be well, I bought another one. Same as the first one only with a 20" barrel. I know. Some of you are shaking you heads... That one lasted 35 rounds before it also quit ejecting. Serial numbers of each was: AM198795 and AM198006. Both .45 Colt. Sent that one back also. Keep in mind that when I finally checked on the second one about two weeks ago, the first one was still down there with no further word. I finally got totally PO'd! Phoned them and told them I wanted some action NOW. When I had trouble with the 2nd one, they did send FedEx to pick it up. Now, there was nothing they could do, had to wait until their turn came up. Not long after the 2nd one went down, my dealer got a letter from TAURUS Warranty saying the rifles would be out another 5-6 weeks! I ignored it and bought a little Model 92 round barrel in .357 Magnum. No more .45 Colts! (This one is still working just fine). I was determined to have one of these that worked! The end of this saga occurred Monday night with notification that my rifles were on the way back to my dealer: A FedEx overnight shipment! The rifles arrived at my dealer yesterday about 1:30 PM. They replaced both rifles! New serial numbers. I took them home and last night re-installed the tang sight I had removed from the first one and put on a Williams fold down rear sight on the second one. Both eject strongly. The extractor of each engages the front of the rim as it should have done. I don't know about the chambers yet as I have not fired them. Both look alright to a bright light. I guess I am writing this to warn potential buyers of these rifles in caliber .45 Colt to beware! There are a couple of magazines that did a nice job of promoting this company in a very believable manner. I have yet to see an article regarding the trouble Rossi is obviously having with the Model 92's, to the point of engaging Taurus warranty to help with the fixing of problems (Both Taurus and Rossi are in the same building in Hialeah, not Miami!). Make no mistake about it: The Rossi Model 92 is a beautiful rifle. They shoot very well, and clover leafs with them at 75 yards is common with a good reload. I could have fixed the second rifle myself rather than send it in. They just do not fine tune the rifle as they should. They apparently do not have much of a final inspection at the plat in Brazil. I'm not happy with Rossi Warranty. They need to be more approachable and more forthcoming with what is going on. I can stand the wait if they keep me informed. I was going to buy one of their Mare's legs, but now I probably won't. I would be tempted to place it up some portion of their anatomy if it did not work, but probably would find several full-length Model 92's placed in that sme spot ahead of me... Would I buy another one? What are the odds I would get another bad one? Pretty good, I'd say!
GregT

[J Miller]

Greg,

The problems are not just with the .45 Colt, other calibers have been problematic as well.

There are several things you need to understand.
>First; the Win 92 design that the Rossi is based on was not intended for straight walled cartridges. They were designed around the short bottle necked rifle rounds of the 1890s. The fact they do work with the straight walled rounds as well as they do is hard to believe.

>Second; the .45 Colt cartridge is the industries bastard step child. Almost every manufacturer except Freedom Arms use chambers that are at SAAMI max. There is no logical reason for this but that's what they do. The Rossi I had was like this, my Win 94AE Trapper is like that, and so is my Marlin 1894 Cowboy.

>Third; you are dealing with a foreign company known as Taurus. They own Rossi now and their service is anything but consistent.

My guess is those rifles of yours could have been fixed very easily by someone who know what they were doing. But, unfortunately not under warranty.

Sorry you had so much trouble, but no manufacturer is perfect. There are a lot of .45 Colt Rossis out there that are working just fine.

Joe

[Hobie]

We never had trouble with Rossi customer service but constantly do with Taurus customer service.

[brno602]

I was a little scared to buy a Rossi being in Canada it is hard to get good customer service with almost any gun. My Rossi .45 is working great, though I had tried to order a scope mount for it from Rossi and ran into road blocks all the time so I made one from a T.C mount.
I don't mount the scope on it just wanted to see what it would shoot like with one on and it is a honest 1'' three shot gun at 100 yds with no scope and my eyes I can only do just under 3''

Customer service is just hard to find now a day's with just about everything Savage used to be great and Marlin too but I here both are not so good anymore .
I think it's wrong they did not give you a exact replacement though.

My Rossi has about 400 rounds through it and keeps getting better the more I shoot the little gun But I keep my fingers crossed nothing goes wrong with.

[GregT]

Thanks for the notes! I am just looking forward to using these rifles. It was the "not knowing" part that got to me. One dealer told me that he has so many of these rifles in to warranty that he does not even know the precise total! All this aside, they are a beautiful rifle and the barrels shoot very accurately. The last thing I want to do is to brow-beat a company that is trying to turn out a nice product. They need to slow down a bit and get things right! I did take the second of the rifles I spoke about apart---several times--- and know pretty much what they are like inside. I fine tune all my cap and ball revolvers and when finished, they are a totally reliable firearm. These Rossis need this sort of thing and they will not get it from the factory. Now on to shooting them this weekend. For those who have not seen these rifles with the case colored actions (real case coloring by the way), they are a treat for the eyes!
GregT

[GregT]

To BRNO602: The little Model 92 in .357 Mag that I have I decided to get myself. The two .45 Colt Model 92's were replaced by Taurus. I would have preferred that they had been repaired as at least the extraction/ejection problem would have been cured and not something to worry about. I have heard from others that these rifles smoothen up with use.
Thanks,
GregT

[AJMD429]

I had tried to order a scope mount for it from Rossi and ran into road blocks all the time so I made one from a T.C mount.

Sometime post that in a thread of its own; many of us might like to make our own 'scout' mount, and I for one haven't been able to find anywhere to order one! I did notice the hole spacing was the same, but didn't know how to approach the barrel taper issue.

[Nate Kiowa Jones]

Hello GregT,

All I can figure is you must be terrible unlucky to get two of them with the vary same FTE problem. I say that because i work on and sell these guns and have been for the last 20 years and I just haven't seen this happening, particularly with the current production guns. The pre-2000 Rossi's were fairly rough but Rossi re-tool about 2000 and the current guns have been much better.
I'm wondering if, for you to have the same problem with two new guns there may be other issues that are coming into play. The first thing that comes to mind is if you happened to load your own 45lc ammo, is it possible you had some old balloon cases? Unlike modern 45lc brass the old balloon cases aren't rebated at the rim so the extractors don't work well with them. (the diagram in the quote below is of a balloon case. notice no rebate)

Which brings me to another question. You mentioned working on your CB revolvers. Was the ammo you were using in the 92's loaded with black powder? The reason I ask, what I've found is 45lc BP ammo is it tends to blowback fouling around the case kinda wedging it in the chamber making it hard to extract. Also, black powder and even with low pressure smokeless powders the fouling tends to blow back and up under the extractor sometime enough to hold it off the rim enough so that it looses it grip on the rim causing a FTE.

You mentioned the chamber issues too. Joe touched on it. But I saved this from previous discussion on this subject.

This discussion comes up almost monthly either on the SASS WIRE or over on the LEVERGUNS.COM forum . Usually it is about the 45lc rifles and the severe blowback with the down loaded CAS ammo.
The reason the problem is more common with the 45lc rifle is because the makers all use the maximum SAMMI (Sporting Arms and Ammunition. Manufacturers’ Institute) specs when they ream the chambers for the gun. They do this so the gun will more likely cycle with a broad spectrum of ammo's. This is why semi-auto pistol with match grade guns are finicky about the ammo they will run. The match grade chambers are tight.

I do warranty work for EMF. They import the Rossi M92 as well. Over the years the EMF folks have had me do chamber cast on various rifles because the customer insisted the chambers were bad. One feller bought an EMF 92 and before he ever shot it sent it to Doug Turnbull for color-case work. Once he shot it with his CAS loads he found that the cases would swell but only on one side, much like your’s. This to him indicated a bulged chamber. He sent the rifle to me along with some of his bulged fired brass to verify this. I did a chamber cast and found the chamber to be within SAMMI spec. and the cases were truly bulged but not beyond SAMMI. Think about this. If the chamber was bulged and the brass was bulged to match extraction would be difficult. Not the case here. The fired bulged brass would easily chamber and fall right out if the open rifle was held vertical. The brass was bulged because that was the softest or the thinnest area of the case, not because the chamber was bad. He insisted, they gave him his money back and I bought a Doug Turnbull CC-ed rifle on the cheap from them.
More recently, they had a feller send me a 92 and a 73 for the same reason. He insisted the chambers were too big on both. I cast both guns and both guns were within SAMMI. He still insist that they are bad, that SAMMI spec are not correct and the industry should do something about it.


This diagram shows both cartridge and chamber dimensions. Please note that unless noted all diameters are +.004 and there .200' inside the chamber the nominal is .4862. if you add .004 to that the chamber can be as large as .4902 and still be in spec. I believe this all came about when the industry changed from the non rebated old balloon style cases like the one shown to the modern rebated rim swaged brass. Notice the max bullet dia. .456. Modern 45lc bullets run to only about .454 max with the majority at .452. The current ammo specs don't fill the chambers like the old balloon case ammo. So hard brass and down loaded CAS ammo will exhibit these problems.




This 45lc blowby in the rifle problem has been going on for so long now I believe the IMR folks came out with their Trailboss powder just to combat this. A good book charge of Trailboss and a 250 grain bullet crimped well in a Win or Starline case seems to be the solution for some folks. Win or Starline cases are somewhat softer brass than most of the others. Some folks only neck size their once fired rifle brass. For BP, there are some folks using 44-40 brass blown out to 45 and claim it works well. 44-40 brass is really thin.

Also, finely fitted guns require more manhours. This adds cost. What Rossi and most all of the other makers do is make the parts as close as they can without making them too small. Then rather than hand fit these parts they just use heavier spring. Think of the savings in manhours. But, the problem then becomes premature wear. Some folks see that as poor metal. My take on it is it's very seldom the metal. If it's poorly fitted and over sprung it's probably not going to hold up.

[DPris]

The .45 Colt 16-incher I acquired through Nate and/or Steve about three years back has been great.
I wouldn't own one unless it'd been worked over by him first to smooth up the roughness, but the chamber's been fine.
Actually quite like it.
Denis

[GregT]

Hi Steve! Glad you wrote and your lengthy response provided me a check sheet which I will try to briefly respond to. Brand new Starline cases are used for my reloading the .45 Colt. Trail Boss powder was used to the max as provided by Hodgdon. No blackpowder. I use that in my antique big bores and modern day Sharps replicas. The chamber was bulged. The casing hardly resembled the .45 Colt after firing. The extractor did not hold when hit by the ejector which drove the empty back into the chamber. This particular problem was on both rifles. I could have fixed both ejection problems but Rossi refused to sell me the extractor bar!! I could not work with the bulged chamber. The rifles that were sent in replacement were fired last night with factory Remington SWC ammo. The casings looked fine after firing and ejection was strong. Ejection was also strong with the dummy rounds I made up. Looks like both rifles will work. As I stated in my note to the list, my object is not to batter Rossi. I think their handling of my situation under warranty was poor. Communication was avoided by them when I called. No info on my rifles was provided. I would love to know the total number of Model 92's they have had come in in the last 6 months. So, the situation is over for me it appears. I am going to go over your response again today and if I have any further questions, I will run it by you. Yes, I do smoothen up my cap and ball Uberti revolvers. They probably would work for general shooting as is, but are sweet when the innards are polished and de-burred. Thanks again!
Greg T.

[olyinaz]

When you get a Rossi without problems they're an absolute hoot and a good value, but the problem as I see it is with the number or percentage of issues they have. My local SASS dedicated shop wont carry or recommend them any longer because they got tired of dealing with warranty issues on new rifles. I had two I sent back myself, one with heavy rust and pitting under the wood line and another .44 mag with what I thought was an overly bulged chamber (may have been within spec, but I wasn't going to live with it). I've got a .357 now that seems to be just fine and runs better than my Win 94 SRC in .357.

Getting back to topic, however, here's something to consider regarding warranty, Taurus, and Rossi 92s: if you have your dealer order your gun from Davidson's (a large firearms wholesaler and the owner of the "Gallery of Guns" web site) you will enjoy their lifetime replacement warranty. That's exactly what I did and I had my new replacements back to my shop within a week. As long as I can return a stinker and keep trying until I get a good one I'm fine with the situation. What I don't like is having to send a brand new gun to Brazil or Italy for warranty work with the MONTHS of turnaround time it always seems to entail.

Perhaps the best way to buy a Rossi 92, in my view, is to buy it directly from Steve the Rossi gunsmith specialist who posts here. He'll obviously not send you a bad one and you can have him tune and slick it prior to sending it to you.

Word to the wise.

Cheers,
Oly

[GregT]

Thanks, Oly! I've collected firearms ever since I could legally buy them at age 16. That makes 46 years this year! For the most part, the connection that I have had with firearms has been the joy of my life. I feel what you say about getting a firearm from Steve being the best deal possible for a working gun is probably quite true. I expect to utilize his talents not too far down the road. You probably have read his "note" to me and I feel anyone who takes the time to put together something like that has to be a pretty personable guy! I intend to enjoy those Rossi's. Lots of slugs are going to be going down range most of this winter here in Wisconsin! I dread the first time one of the rifles fails to eject... Maybe now I won't have to worry about it! My goal is to get 500 rounds through each rifle as soon as I can. Let's hope the snow does not start too soon! Thanks again for the note!
GregT

[Nate Kiowa Jones]

Hi Steve! Glad you wrote and your lengthy response provided me a check sheet which I will try to briefly respond to. Brand new Starline cases are used for my reloading the .45 Colt. Trail Boss powder was used to the max as provided by Hodgdon. No blackpowder. I use that in my antique big bores and modern day Sharps replicas. The chamber was bulged. The casing hardly resembled the .45 Colt after firing. The extractor did not hold when hit by the ejector which drove the empty back into the chamber. This particular problem was on both rifles. I could have fixed both ejection problems but Rossi refused to sell me the extractor bar!! I could not work with the bulged chamber. The rifles that were sent in replacement were fired last night with factory Remington SWC ammo. The casings looked fine after firing and ejection was strong. Ejection was also strong with the dummy rounds I made up. Looks like both rifles will work. As I stated in my note to the list, my object is not to batter Rossi. I think their handling of my situation under warranty was poor. Communication was avoided by them when I called. No info on my rifles was provided. I would love to know the total number of Model 92's they have had come in in the last 6 months. So, the situation is over for me it appears. I am going to go over your response again today and if I have any further questions, I will run it by you. Yes, I do smoothen up my cap and ball Uberti revolvers. They probably would work for general shooting as is, but are sweet when the innards are polished and de-burred. Thanks again!
Greg T.

Though they don't ready make it available the folks doing the warranty on the Rossi's now are the Taurus folks.

Taurus International
ATTN: Repair Department
16175 NW 49 Avenue
Miami, FL 33014

BrazTech International L.C.
Consumer Care Department
16175 N.W. 49th Avenue,
Miami, FL 33014

The thing is, this only come about less than two years ago. The Taurus folks have little experience with the 92's. If it's not an obvious problem say like a broken part the 92 can be a real bear to fix. A good example is your extractors. The reason they wouldn't sell you the extractors is that part is machined to the bolts. I run in to this problem occasionally. You don't need a new extractor. The fix is easy. You don't even have to remove the bolt from the gun. Just open the action, drift out the pin and remove the extractor. Now, remove some metal from the the bottom of the extractor just behind the hook so that it sets lower for a better hook engagement of the rim.

As for the bulged chamber, I can't begin to tell how many 45lc rifles, and not just Rossi's either, that have been sent to me because the owner thought the chambers were bulged. The only way to truly know if it's bulged is to do a chamber cast then measure the casting. I did that on every gun and not one of those guns had bulged chambers.
Think about this, if the chambers were bulged once you fire-form the brass into the chamber you would just about have to use a squib rod to knock the case back out of the chamber. That's because the brass swells into the bulge wedging it in.
Most modern 45lc dies re-size the brass to around .470" or less. If you check the diagram above you will see the spec allows as much .4902" chamber dia. Cases fire-form out .020" will look like a bulge.

[2571]

Taurus told my ffl they are going to outsource their warranty / customer relations work to a place in Pakistan in late 2011.

My guy says it will be an improvement.

[darkwater]

Pakistan? I don't know about that being a good move: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/30/1 ... order.html

[DPris]

I can't imagine any maker setting up warrantee WORK outside the US borders on a gun sold inside the US borders.
The import/export paperwork would be prohibitive, at the very least.
A service department call center I CAN see, but not the actual repair location.
Denis

[GregT]

Good early morning! All Taurus/Rossi has to do is to make a rifle that is complete at the factory and thoroughly inspected and tested BEFORE it leaves the factory! Every manufacturer has quality control problems now and then, but the amount of problems that have come up with the Model 92 lever guns is just not acceptable. The problems in some cases are minor and could even be fixed by a local gunsmith (A REAL gunsmith, not some jack-leg who thinks he's a "gunsmith".). Or warranty could consist of a fellow like Steve who knows what he is doing and can set up a repair job, think it through and then complete it. There are lots of improvement possibilities. Going way back, Browning should have been slapped the side of his head for the way he designed the ejector in the Model 92... Anyone who is thinking about buying one of these little rifles needs to think before he acts. Basically, there is no warranty service for these rifles as we think of warranty service. The magazines hype how well this company is coming on and all the new products they are making, etc. Sooner or later, this customer service snafu is going to catch Taurus/Rossi and they won't be able to give their products away. Perhaps they should sell the Model 92 as an 80% finished "kit" with all parts fit but not quite smoothed up!
GregT

[COSteve]

Unfortunately, Rossi's current workmanship issues aren't the exception but rather the rule in the levergun business. Every Winny (even the beautiful Japchesters) needs slicking up and most need a switch out of the lawyer'd parts to make them acceptable.

Have you tried a new Marlin lately? Appalling!

[GregT]

Just so happens my neighbor bought a Marlin Model 94 in .357 last week and put a scope on it. I phoned him yesterday and asked if he had had a chance to shoot it yet. He had. He said, two shots tight together and one way off... Said he was going to try some different loads out. He did not expound on his test work as he usually does. Got the distinct feeling that he was not happy. He's using jacketed slugs in his. I helped him put scope mounts on it the other day and while it looks like a Marlin Model 94 with decent wood, it rough and grating to operate. My Rossis' as I have them are smoother to run. I bet warranty service would not be any better.
GregT

[retmech]

I had tried to order a scope mount for it from Rossi and ran into road blocks all the time so I made one from a T.C mount.

Sometime post that in a thread of its own; many of us might like to make our own 'scout' mount, and I for one haven't been able to find anywhere to order one! I did notice the hole spacing was the same, but didn't know how to approach the barrel taper issue.

We discussed this sometime back on this board. The correct part number for the round barreled scope mount is P892. This mount has the taper built into it and I purchased one from Rossi this past year. The girl I ordered it from tried to give me part # P802 (which does not have the taper) but I insisted and got P892.

[Nate Kiowa Jones]

Just so happens my neighbor bought a Marlin Model 94 in .357 last week and put a scope on it. I phoned him yesterday and asked if he had had a chance to shoot it yet. He had. He said, two shots tight together and one way off... Said he was going to try some different loads out. He did not expound on his test work as he usually does. Got the distinct feeling that he was not happy. He's using jacketed slugs in his. I helped him put scope mounts on it the other day and while it looks like a Marlin Model 94 with decent wood, it rough and grating to operate. My Rossis' as I have them are smoother to run. I bet warranty service would not be any better.
GregT

Hi Greg,
Keep in mind both Rossi and Marlin are going through a transition right now. Rossi was bought out by Taurus about 2 years agao and Marlin was bought out by Remington. It seems like everytime one of these company's make changes like this the QC seems to suffer.
If you were around the industry back in the late 80's early 90's Colt went through the same thing. I had colt guns here out of their custom shop even with proof targets and the guns didn't work at all.

[GregT]

We received some of the new "streamlined" Colt Detective Specials in the late 70's---23 of them to be exact. Putting serial numbers in the main book, I ran into one that had the front sight cocked to the left---a lot to the left! Didn't record that one. Nor did I record 18 more from that shipment. They all went back. In the mid 80's we got a Smith Model 29---with a Model 57 barrel on it! Smith replaced it with no comment. I recall also the Remington shotgun barrels made with the wrong steel and the lengthy recall. I guess when you think about it, Rossi is only a small bump in a big road!
GregT

[Nate Kiowa Jones]

We received some of the new "streamlined" Colt Detective Specials in the late 70's---23 of them to be exact. Putting serial numbers in the main book, I ran into one that had the front sight cocked to the left---a lot to the left! Didn't record that one. Nor did I record 18 more from that shipment. They all went back. In the mid 80's we got a Smith Model 29---with a Model 57 barrel on it! Smith replaced it with no comment. I recall also the Remington shotgun barrels made with the wrong steel and the lengthy recall. I guess when you think about it, Rossi is only a small bump in a big road!
GregT

Yeah, but that's also what keeps me in business.