I recently picked up a brand new Rossi model R46202 which is a stainless steel 2" barrel 6 shot revolver chambered in .357 magnum. The gun is a little larger than a J frame but smaller than a K frame. These pistols were on sale at a LGS, in either blued or stainless (same price) and come with fairly nice rubber Rossi grips with finger grooves. I got the pistol, a box of 50 American Eagle 158gr .38 spl rounds, and a soft drink for $304 tax included.
My first impression of the pistol was that the trigger was pretty heavy and gritty feeling in DA. I brought the gun home and disassembled it for cleaning before firing it. The outside of the gun was wet with oil/lube but under the side plate had smears of grease, some of which looked like it had dried/hardened into crusty sludge. After cleaning all of that out, requiring some scraping, and applying frog lube.... The action was much better. I found several gunsmithing videos online about polishing the action on a revolver, so I did that as well. A small amount of polishing on the contact points made a world of difference. As far as the internals of the pistol, it looks identical to my S&W model 15....same parts, same assembly/disassembly, etc.
Yesterday I took it to the range and fired 100 rounds through it, all .38 spl rounds, without any issues at all. It's an all steel revolver, so recoil isn't bad at all with the .38 rounds. It's as accurate as you'd expect a 2" barrel to be. Up to 10 yards, I was able to shoot good groups. At 25 yards, it looked more like birdshot had hit the target rather than pistol rounds.
Yea, it's "just a Rossi", so resale value isn't going to be much. The trigger needed work, it was dirty and rough when I un-boxed the pistol, but with a little cleaning and 20 minutes worth of polishing, it's as smooth as the model 15. We will see how it holds up over more trips to the range. But for a low budget snubbie revolver in stainless, I don't think its "bad" at all.
So far I am very happy with it.
Rossi R462 SS .357 2" revolver
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