Rossi 92 .38/.357 Feeding Problem

[rdouglasc]

Hi guys. I'm a newbie to lever action. I bought a Rossi 92 .38/.357 and had a lot of fun shooting the .38 special rounds. They cycled without a hitch. The gun had problems feeding the .357 rounds though. I had to play with it quite a bit to get it to feed correctly each time. The front edge of the shell is hanging up as the lever is brought back up. The ammo I used was Remington UMC .357 Magnum 125 GR. JSP which was the only .357 ammo available. Is this common and is there a fix for it or is the ammo wrong?

[3leggedturtle]

Hi welcome aboard. More knowledge folks will have more info than me. I got lucky my 357 Puma feeds everything great. Tho some others have to realy work the action hard to get rounds to chamber smoothly. Hopefully it will fix itself with some shooting. Or dry firing. 3leg / Todd

[dracothered]

It might be the detent for the feed / lift ramp that is causing the issue. But I am only guessing as I am by far only a beginner with these fine Rossi rifles.

[earlmck]

All my Rossis are real length sensitive. My 357 won't feed a regular length 38 and it won't feed the long 357's I shoot in my revolver. It just likes standard length 357 loads. I'd sure like to have a look at one like 3leg has that feeds everything to see if I could figure out what the difference is. I've polished the dickens out of the slots in the guide rails where the rim comes through and maybe helped a little but not a lot.

I'm guessing those 125 grain loads are a little on the short side, rdouglasc. It may be that a standard 158 grain cartridge would feed through fine. But since yours feeds 38's, -- guess I wouldn't bet big money on it.

I'm hoping somebody answers your question intelligently and helps me out in the process!

Oh yeah, my Win 92 38/40 is also real length sensitive, and my ancient 25/20 is some length sensitive, so it isn't just the Rossi brand.

[Griff]

Hi guys. I'm a newbie to lever action. I bought a Rossi 92 .38/.357 and had a lot of fun shooting the .38 special rounds. They cycled without a hitch. The gun had problems feeding the .357 rounds though. I had to play with it quite a bit to get it to feed correctly each time. The front edge of the shell is hanging up as the lever is brought back up. The ammo I used was Remington UMC .357 Magnum 125 GR. JSP which was the only .357 ammo available. Is this common and is there a fix for it or is the ammo wrong?

he 1982 was designed for use with the bottle-necked cartridges of the day. The .25-20, .32WCF, .38WCF & .44WCF. These all have a overall length of around 1.6". Straight-walled cartridges mean that the back of the chamber is approximately the same diameter as the front. This leads to issues of timing for the rim of the cartridge to come up between the guides. In order to make this work with two fairly significant different lengths cartridges, the Rossi seems to use a "middle-of-the-road' approach to this. With some .38/.357 rifles it is nearly transparent, while on others, they prefer one length or the other.

However, to really understand your issue, some terms need to be defined. When you refer to the front edge of the shell, are you referring to the bullet nose? It also is necessary to define where the bullet is hanging up. But, generally speaking, the nose hangs up in two places, on the upper portion of the chamber, as the cartridge isn't being allowed to ride up the face of the ejector quick enough, or it's hanging up on the lower edge of the chamber, in which case it's a cartridge length issue. This latter issue could also be related to the length of the carrier, IOW, the carrier doesn't have enough room for the cartridge of a proper length.

Maybe a description of how the 1892 works is in order. With the lever closed, the bolt is in battery, and the carrier is down, allowing cartridges to be fed into the magazine thru the "spring cover"... yes, that's what it's called. As the lever is pushed down and forward, the bolt is pushed to the rear, and the last cartridge loaded is pushed upward in the nose up attitude as the lever reaches it's most forward position. The cartridge stop, (part of the left guide), holds any other rounds in the magazine.

When the lever is pulled rearward and raised, the bolt is pulled forward, in effect stripping the round from the carrier (some refer to this part as a "lifter" but "carrier" is correct) with the extended ejector pushing the round forward and up. The cartridge in held in this upward attitude until the rim encounters the slots in the guides, allowing the rear of the cartridge to move up into a level attitude and then into the chamber.

Pictures are important, because they can convey so much more information than we can impart thru written word alone. So:
Here are 3 different .38 Splecials that can run thru my son's 1892 Rossi. From left to right: 158gr RN, 158 gr JHP & 110 gr JHP. For some unknown reason, I can't find my dial caliper so I can't give the exact length of each, but suffice to say, they're all nominally the same length.



In this 2nd pic, the bolt is fully open to show the bullet laying against the ejector and the amount of space for a longer cartridge.


In the 3rd pic the lever is fully forward, and the carrier has lifted the nose of the cartridge thru the guides, ready to feed into the chamber.


The 4th pic I've started the pull the lever back to the point just before the rim pops up thru the slots in the guides.


My 5th & 6th pics show the rim below the guides and the nose entering the chamber.




The last pic shows the cartridge laying level and aligned with the chamber, about halfway in.


I hope that explains what you should be expecting to happen, whether with a .38Spl or .357 Mag. This rifle does feed Magnum length cartridges as long as I keep them to no more than SAAMI maximum length, 1.590". And maybe gives you a frame of reference by which to explain what is happening with your rifle.

Oh yeah, from Texas, and Welcome to THE Forum. I suspect that should Nate Kiowa Jones (The Rossi '92 Expert), chime in, he'll correct me and give a better explanation than I can.

[rdouglasc]

Thanks guys. To clarify, the top front edge of the .357 casing is hanging up on the top front edge of the barrel as it enters. This is as I bring the lever back up. I'll try to post a picture later.

[piller]

If you have to, you can check with Steve's Gunz and ask him about it. He posts on here as Nate Kiowa Jones. His e-mail is steve@stevesgunz.com and he sells a DVD and parts kit to make your 92 work like a professional model. I have a 92 in .480 Ruger and it works so well that I haven't bothered to improve it yet. Nate Kiowa Jones is probably the best person to tell you how to fix the problem.

[Old Savage]

Wow Griff - some explanation - thanks.

[Griff]

Thanks guys. To clarify, the top front edge of the .357 casing is hanging up on the top front edge of the barrel as it enters. This is as I bring the lever back up. I'll try to post a picture later.

As can be seen in this photo, the front edge of the case should be rolled into the cannelure to hold the bullet in position during recoil and to keep from being pushed back into the case under recoil in the tubular magazine. If the case isn't rolled, then yes, you could have an ammo problem. This can be a combination of the overall length and the nose shape. A levergun with a system that requires the cartridge to change "attitude", (goes from horizontal, to angled, back to horizontal), needs a rounded bullet nose. Truncated cones (a tri-angular shape with the top cut off), can also work well, as long as the meplat (flat area) is not too wide. Therefore wad-cutters and semi-wadcutters with their wide meplats can have problems feeding. Either the nose getting jammed against the top of the chamber as described above, or the sharp shoulder of the bullet (projectile) catches on the edge of the chamber.

Here's a sampling of both handloaded and factory .38 Specials and .357 Magnums and their respective overall lengths.

(Yep, found the dial caliper! It's mainly in the picture to provide the camera's center-weighted auto-focus something to focus on!)

For informational purposes, all of the jacketed & semi-wadcutter rounds are factory produced, along with the round nose PMC .38Spl on the bottom left, noted as being 1.529" long. The top left .38Spl and bottom left under the .357 label are my handloads with my handcast 158 gr roundnose.

Hope that helps you diagnose your issue.

[Arminius]

my Rossi 92 feeds .357 fine, but the same brand same weight bullet 38 loadings ( Magtech, 158 grs ) .38 specials seem to catch someting on the top edge or even inside of the chamber, and thus, partially in the chamber, jams.

Or is it the lower chamber edge against the side of the case, and I don´t see that, as I look at this from above.

Have to try .38´s with RN bullets.

I have this gun for quite a while, but shot only occasionally, and only .357´s.

It´s the SS version, and kinda ITSHTF , or "House defence" Rifle. Surely under 200 rds through it.

Hermann

[rdouglasc]

Found some Cor-Bon .357 110 gr JHP and bought it. They are expensive but it feeds these with no problem.

I appreciate all the input. Good stuff.

[rdouglasc]

What all does the Steve's Gunz kit do?

[aragornelessar86]

I've loaded a lot of .357 and run it through my Rossi with no problems. Never crimped any of 'em either. Any time I had some shells that wanted to hang up I just worked the action quickly and crisply and they popped right in. I do know that my father-in-law had to polish the dickens out of his Marlin 1895GS to get the big 45-70s to feed right. Might have reamed the bottom lip of the chamber face a bit too. Long, straight sided shells can take some TLC to make 'em work right is what I'm driving at.

[Bob Hatfield]

I have an Interarms Rossi that will not feed standard length 357's. I've polished every part like a mirror. It seems like when the round is entering the chamber it enters too steeply and it jams because the bullet is hitting the top of the chamber before the rim at the rear starts to rise because of the guides and the ejector inintiating the raise of the rear of the cartridge. In my case it looks like my carrier needs to be thicker at the rear so the cartridge case is entering the chamber not so steeply. Sometimes I believe the previous owner modified the lifter as it seems to have a notch at the rear.

Bob

[Griff]

I have an Interarms Rossi that will not feed standard length 357's. I've polished every part like a mirror. It seems like when the round is entering the chamber it enters too steeply and it jams because the bullet is hitting the top of the chamber before the rim at the rear starts to rise because of the guides and the ejector inintiating the raise of the rear of the cartridge. In my case it looks like my carrier needs to be thicker at the rear so the cartridge case is entering the chamber not so steeply. Sometimes I believe the previous owner modified the lifter as it seems to have a notch at the rear.
Bob

What shape bullet are you using? Both shape AND length are important to ensure proper feeding in a leveraction.

[Griff]

Wow Griff - some explanation - thanks.

You're welcome, Sir. (Tho' I'm still not sure you meant that in an entirely complimentary manner!)

[Dawg]

Sounds like the OP's gun is just about the same way mine was when I first got it. It would feed and shoot .38's perfectly, but .357's would hang up on the top edge of the chamber entrance. I found the simplest solution was factory ammo that utilized 158gr semi jacketed soft points that worked the absolute best, those and S&B 158gr FMC's. The examples I have included in my photo all share one common factor as well that really helps with reliable feeding....the cases are all roll crimped.

I have since replaced the extractor spring with the one that Nate Kiowa Jones offers, and did a little judicious stoning of the action, and the gun feeds just about anything now.

The rounds pictured are from the left to right.... 125gr Remington softpoint, 158gr Federal Softpoint, 158gr Independence Blazer softpoint (Also one of the slickest feeding) and lastly 158gr S&B FMC. I have shot over 1000 of the S&B FMC's and the meplat is big enough that they are not going to chain fire in the tube, and they are great for smoothing the rough edges and slicking things up a tad.

My gun is slicker than the proverbial snot now, and one of, if not the most favorite weapon I own.

[dogngun]

I once had an old Rossi Puma that fed everything but the Blazer aluminum case ammo...and the instructions said that you should not use that...but I tried anyway.

I have a NEW Rossi M92 that I bought last summer and have never even fired yet...But I would recommend operating that lever smartly and with authority.

mark

[tallon1138]

I have a '92 in .45 colt has same problems, I've bought Steve's cd and kit haven't done everything to it yet, but the parts alone are worth it, cd has good info on it I'm pleased

[Arminius]

I have an Interarms Rossi that will not feed standard length 357's. ..... It seems like when the round is entering the chamber it enters too steeply and it jams because the bullet is hitting the top of the chamber before the rim at the rear starts to rise because of the guides and the ejector intiating the raise of the rear of the cartridge.
Bob

That´s exactly the problem with mine with the SHORTER 38 cartridges!

?!?!

Hermann

[lv2tinker]

My new 92 Rossi feed 38 Specials great, but will not chamber .357's. Hangs up every time just like Arminius and several others on this forum does.
Sure hope someone finds a solution for this soon so I can fix mine. Don't care to send it back to Rossi & wait 3 months to get it back.

[Bob Hatfield]

I have an Interarms Rossi that will not feed standard length 357's. I've polished every part like a mirror. It seems like when the round is entering the chamber it enters too steeply and it jams because the bullet is hitting the top of the chamber before the rim at the rear starts to rise because of the guides and the ejector inintiating the raise of the rear of the cartridge. In my case it looks like my carrier needs to be thicker at the rear so the cartridge case is entering the chamber not so steeply. Sometimes I believe the previous owner modified the lifter as it seems to have a notch at the rear.
Bob

What shape bullet are you using? Both shape AND length are important to ensure proper feeding in a leveraction.

Mine will not feed my standard pistol bullet I use. Hornady 158 XTP either hollow or soft point. Nor will Winchester 158 JHPs. I havent tried a 125 grain jacketed. A shorter (from the cannelure up) bullet may be what this gun needs. Seems like some lighter hollowpoints or soft points have the cannelure in the same spot as the heavier 158 gr. bullet. What I need it looks like is the shortest possibe bullet from the cannelure forward.

Thank you

Bob

[Griff]

If you're having problems with your .357 magnums two things might be wrong. 1 - The carrier might be coming up too far. This sets the cartridge at too steep an angle and the rear of the cartridge can't raise fast enough to overcome that angle. 2 - The slots in the carrier are too far forward to allow a cartridge the length of the .357 to raise up thru them and become horizontal.

I'm not trying to diagnose your exact problem long distance. But, cartidge length issues are VERY common. If I had a recommended fix, it'd be to contact Nate Kiowa Jones, see what he recommends and buy his DVD.