Well, OK... maybe just one more
I swapped into a new Rossi R92 about a week ago, with a 20” barrel in 45 Colt. The lever cycled smoothly, the sights were on good & square and there were no outward signs of shoddy workmanship or assembly. This one has a little more grain showing than my earlier 92's and there is even sort of a finish on it, as opposed to the stain-painted 92 stocks I've had in the past. The wood to metal fit is better than most that have been through my hands.
Oddly, this rifle has a longer stock than either of my previous 92's. Slick buttplate aside, it shoulders like a rifle ought to. The trigger is better than any new 92 I've handled.
Quick as chores were done, the Missus and I took it down and ran a few rounds through it. The sights were on from the factory and it fed the Lee 255 RF, the Missouri Bullet 255 SWCs and Sierra 240 JHPs all just fine. It shot well too. We started at 25 yards, moved to 50 yards and ended firing a few shots at 100. I never missed the 14” plate and was pleased to discover this menagerie of ammo landed in an egg shaped group maybe 4x6 inches, from the center of the plate to its lower edge. I gotta say, this 20” gun is easier to hit with than my 16” 45 Colt was. I seem to have finally gotten an excellent Rossi 92.
I needed to check this 92's accuracy but buckhorn sights and I don't get along for fine shooting. I shoot much better with a flat top rear sight and I happened to have a spare in the parts bin. I also replaced the front bead with a 0.400 tall take-off from a previous 16” Rossi 357, because I figured it'd work better with the lower replacement rear sight. I drifted both sights into what looked to be the center of the barrel and headed down in the field to check zero.
My standard 45 Colt load is a 8.5 grains of Universal and Maplewood's Lee 452-255-RF sized 0.454”. It pretty much duplicates the ballistics of the original 40 grain black-powder government load and it's been exceptionally accurate in every 45 Colt I've tried it it. My guesswork sight placement was perfect this time so I moved back to 100 yards, took a rest and fired three careful shots at the rifle plate. I heard it ring steel every time and I didn't see any hits out in the white, so I knew they all had to be in the 6” black dot. What I didn't expect was that they overlapped each other. It might not be a long range rig, but I can't complain about the way it shoots.
For clarifications sake- I'm not pretending for a minute I can reproduce that group on demand, but it's sure nice when the stars line up. It also tells me the rifle has plenty of accuracy for anything I'll need to do with a pistol-caliber lever action.
