pics of Rossi 92 38/357 Lugs,thoughts ?

[bcraig]

I recently bought a Rossi 92 Stainless and took it apart enough to take one coil off of the ejector spring and 1.5 inch off the magazine spring .

Had some difficulty getting it back together but anyway here are some pics of the bolt.
I have worked the action about 100 times without lubrication and looking at the bolt see some differences in bolt wear from one side on the left side I can see a lot more wear as compared to the right side with almost no visible wear.

Is this unusual or about par for the course ?

Is there anything that I need to do to get more even wear on both sides of the bolt lugs or is it nothing to be concerned with ?

Thanks

[AJMD429]

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I'm no gunsmith, but just thinking logically I'd say that the point of the "wearing-in" is that only the parts that have rough or raised spots are going to be the ones doing most of the 'wearing', and the parts that have plenty of clearance won't need to 'wear' at all.

Now if it were on the 'engagement' (front or rear) surfaces that there was a noticeable difference, I'd be a bit concerned, as I'd kind of like my receiver and lugs to share the pressure equally, and although the wearing would facilitate that, if there were zero wear on one side it might imply there was not much load being borne on that side.

In this case, it's just the face of the lug that rides against the side of the receiver, and although you'd not want a bunch of rotation happening from a really sloppy fit, I don't think I'd be concerned.

The very nature of the dual locking lug designs like that makes me wonder if even on the best quality leverguns, how often most of the psi is held by one side vs the other. (...or the same thing on multi-lug bolt actions - do you think a non-blueprinted off-the-shelf bolt action rifle has both lugs really perfectly sharing the load, or that all seven of the skinny little lugs on the bolt of an AR-15 are the same clearance/snugness to the barrel cuts...???) While testing that on a bolt or semiauto is not easy, at least on a levergun, you can use a dental pick and see if there is any ability to move either lug foreward or backward when the bolt is locked up. If so I'd be kind of bothered.

How well the load was shared between multiple lugs on any design if they weren't all perfectly the same in clearance, would depend on how many thousandths of an inch the metal stretches at peak pressure, and I don't even like THINKING about that concept of metal stretching that is right in front of my face and containing tens of thousands of PSI, so I just close my eyes and shoot. (...surely the closed eyes will protect against pieces of ruptured receiver that go flying - right...? ...but that may explain why I keep missing my target...

[Bronco]

Have you shot them ?? Would like to see a few pictures of the targets.

[bcraig]

Have you shot them ?? Would like to see a few pictures of the targets.

No,I have done any shooting yet still trying to make up my mind about my choice of ammo

[GunnyMack]

The left side pic, 2 screws tells me the screw slots were slightly high as you can see a burr raised on the lower screw. The wear showing on the locking bolt( locking block) might be from bits of the screw collecting and causing that wear seen or it is indeed the locking bolt itself.
What I would do is remove the bolt , give it a light polishing, knock the burrs off the screw heads then use a Sharpie marker ( in lieu of Dykem) - reassemble and proceed to the same 100 cycling of the action and then revisit the wear. Its normal so I wouldn't be too concerned with that wear.

As Doc said, locking lugs usually aren't all in perfect contact, especially in older actions, I remember a guy in school who spent days making a spring loaded barrel shank that would put pressure on the face of a Mauser bolt so he could lap in 1 lug that was so far off it was scary. He finally bought a 'new ' bolt so he didn't have to scrap the whole action.

[Pat C]

I think those burrs on screw slots are where he disassembled it. You have to realize the sides of the locking bolt don't do anything functional other than keep the bolts straight in the mortise.

The bearing surfaces are top front where cams breech bolt and rear surfaces.

IIRC tge Rossi mortise is casted done and rough as cast surface. An action stone will level tops of casting inside receiver. Which is one of the important steps improving the smoothness of Rossi 92.

Those investment cast surfaces once a light stoning and a little of the orange peel surface is left makes a great lubrication holding surface.

All your doing is leveling any abnormal high spots ,not trying to completely remove cast surface.

[AJMD429]

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"...Those investment cast surfaces once a light stoning and a little of the orange peel surface is left makes a great lubrication holding surface..."

Yep - kind of like a less-cosmetically-appealing version of 'jewelling'...

[bcraig]

I think those burrs on screw slots are where he disassembled it. You have to realize the sides of the locking bolt don't do anything functional other than keep the bolts straight in the mortise.

The bearing surfaces are top front where cams breech bolt and rear surfaces.

IIRC tge Rossi mortise is casted done and rough as cast surface. An action stone will level tops of casting inside receiver. Which is one of the important steps improving the smoothness of Rossi 92.

Those investment cast surfaces once a light stoning and a little of the orange peel surface is left makes a great lubrication holding surface.

All your doing is leveling any abnormal high spots ,not trying to completely remove cast surface.

the

Yes ,Yhe Burrs on the screw Heads were a Ham handed effor to make sure they did not come loose.,the lack of bluing on the left side lug was present before dissembly.