A few thoughts and observations:
1) Rossi has been making its version of the Winchester 1892 *in magnum pistol cartridges* since the 1960s and they have more experience with the basic model 1892 design in those cartridges than anyone else. The Winchester 1892 action was basically a miniaturized 1886, and its a very strong action design. Rossi made it stronger and improved it with coil springs, and other modern methods.
2) Wood on the Rossi 92s have varied a bit over the years by era and importer. Over the last decade the wood has gotten much better. 10 or so years ago the mystery hardwood was finished with something with all the charm of shoe polish, that would also run in the rain. But on the other hand it made a decent base coat for application of a Tru-Oil, Pure Tung Oil, or Boiled Linseed Oil finish. The first couple coats took several hours to integrate with the original finish, but the other coats would go on like normal and 3-4 coats would take it from this:
To this:
3) The metalwork and bluing or case hardened finish on all three Rossi 92s I own is good quality. But they all benefitted from a thorough cleaning to remove preservative grease and a surprising amount of chips and swarf from machining.
I recommend getting the DVD from Steve's Gunz that walks you through the disassembly and reassembly process so that you can give it a thorough cleaning. Once that's been done its not hard to do again.
If you are not confident with disassembly, just remove the stock and forearm, clean the metal parts thoroughly with a spray type gun cleaner or brake cleaner, then lubricate the assembly thoroughly with a spray gun oil, then let it rest on the tang and drip the excess into a cake pan over night before putting the wood back on.
4) It also benefits from a action job and that's also discussed in the Steve's Gunz dvd. if you are reasonably mechanically inclined and can use tools small file fairly proficiently, its not hard to do. It will basically include:
- Removing the ejector spring and replacing it with a lighter one from Steve's Gunz (if you do nothing else you'll see about 80 percent of the total improvement);
- Cutting a couple coils off the hammer spring to reduce cocking effort;
- Shortening the magazine spring, and filing about 1/3 off the loading gate spring to make loading easier;
- Polishing the lever detent;
- Polishing the detents in the cartridge guides;
- Polishing the camming surfaces on the back of the bolt and the front of the locking lugs; and
- Replacing the plastic magazine follower with a stainless follower from Steve's Gunz.
The end result will be a Model 92 every bit as slick as a Browning or Winchester 1892 for half the money.
5) Rossi started putting a pig tail safety on the bolt about 15 years ago and its in my opinion an unsafe design as its way to easily brushed to the on or off position without the shooter being away of it. But it is easily removed and replaced with a plug you can get from Steve's Gunz. It will still have the quarter cock notch that the original 1892 had, and its easily carried with the lever slightly opened, which takes it out of battery and prevents the hammer from contacting the firing pin.
6) In addition to the 20" carbine in .45 Colt shown at the top, I have a 20" rifle in .357 Mag and a 24" rifle in .357 Mag. Both are 2 MOA 5 shot group rifles at 100 yards with a tang sight. Velocities with Federal 158 gr Soft point (American Hunter or Champion) average 1820 fps, and are effective on deer to 150 yards where the bullet still has 1350 fps and 640 ft pounds of energy. I zero at 150 yards which gives me a very reasonable maximum mid range trajectory of 3.7". I do the initial zero at 50 yards with a 3" high point of impact and then verify at 150 yards.
7) Beartooth Mercantile sells a hammer screw with a saddle ring on it, that lets you separate the front and rear halves without tools.
