New Member/New Rossi 357

[Newtmaker]

I ordered a Rossi 92 in .357 a week ago and hopefully it will be here today. I also have a Henry H001T and a Winchester 94 Golden Spike edition in 30-30.
I am a 27 year Navy Vet, now 67, and have relearned the fun of shooting and reloading after a many year hiatius from the late 60's and early 70's.
I see some familiar names here from the Rimfire Forums so it must be a good site!
As soon as the Rossi gets here and I have time to shoot and take pics, I will post results.
Glad to be here!

Walt (aka Newtmaker)

[jnyork]

Welcome aboard, Newt. Several of us here from RFC, it is indeed a great board. What barrel length is your .357 and where did you get it?

[J Miller]

Walt,

Welcome to the forum. Pull up a stump, grab some coffee and join us.

Joe

[AJMD429]

Always good to have a new member; keeps us 'fresh' and fun. . .

Good information and cameraderie here - welcome.

[Nate Kiowa Jones]

Howdy,
And thank you for your service defending our country.

[Griff]

And Welcome to THE Forum. What Nate said.

[RIHMFIRE]

Howdy,
And thank you for your service defending our country.

+100
cant thank you guys enough

[Newtmaker]

Welcome aboard, Newt. Several of us here from RFC, it is indeed a great board. What barrel length is your .357 and where did you get it?

I picked it up earlier this afternoon. I got the .38/.357 with 20" round barrel in blue. Actually a VERY deep blue/black that looks black. I am very pleased with the guns looks. I immediately cleaned it up when I got home. VERY full of grease and rusty metal residue. Even the tube was gross: probably ran 15 patches with Hoppes and 15 more with ezox before it was clean. Ran some dummy cartridges through the action and everything functioned fine. Trigger probably 5 to 7 pounds and action not bad, but a little clunky. I think a few hundred rounds or so will help both a lot. I will wait at least 5 or 6 months before I consider any improvements. However, I WILL be ordering the kit from Kiowa soon just so I can view the DVD at least a hundred times before I touch the gun as far as taking down!
Tomorrow will be range baptism day! I have a box of 357 factory loads and a half box of some mild reloads with 158g wadcutters. I will also chrony everything so I can start gathering data asap.
Report and pics to follow!

Walt

[gak]

+101 thank you for your service, and welcome aboard. You're well on your way to becoming a '92 addict!

[pokey]

welcome home.

[Newtmaker]

Full stable for now with the three lever guns. More pics tomorrow after I see how the 92 shoots.

Walt

[willygene]

you will like it and like every body else said thanks for your service.

[gamekeeper]

Welcome to the fire...

[Newtmaker]

Just returned from the range with the Rossi. All in all I am pleased. The action functioned just fine with 357 and 38 Specials, either jacketed or lead bullets. The load gate is still stiff but I can tell it is getting better after about 75 rounds.

The sights are only good for 38 loads and mild ones at that. For the 357 I will need a much higher front sight. I have been through that drill with my Winchester 94 already.

The attached pic is one 5" target at 55 meters from a bag rest. I believe it was the 158 g XTP loaded in 38 cases with 4.6 g Unique.

As I said before, I plan to get a few hundred rounds through the gun before trying to improve the action any.

Walt

[Retro]

I did basically this http://www.castbullet.com/shooting/rossi-s.htm and get 30mm 5 shot groups at 50m off a rest with open sights, 158 grain bullets at 1525 fps.

[Mutt]

It was suggested to me early on not to use wad cutters with the Rossi 92 copy . I 've been using round flat nose 158 gr lead , and sometimes simi jacketed . So far all is well .
But like some others the main complaint is I just don't get to play as much as I'd like to.


,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Mutt

[Newtmaker]

It was suggested to me early on not to use wad cutters with the Rossi 92 copy . I 've been using round flat nose 158 gr lead , and sometimes simi jacketed . So far all is well .
But like some others the main complaint is I just don't get to play as much as I'd like to.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Mutt

Interesting. I can't think of a reason why that would be unless the longer barrel would allow more leading opportunity.
The wadcutter I was using, 10 rounds only, were the taper nose variety. I also shot about 20 of the LRN as well. The majority were Hornady XTP in the 125 and 158 g variety, as well as 10 or so of the factory load 357 in JRN.

When I cleaned the barrel I took extra care to make sure it was good and clean and it didn't take a lot of extra effort to do so. The grooves looked very nice and no residual residue could be seen afterwards.

Thanks for the inputs to everyone who responded. I think I have found another "Great" forum to learn from

Walt

[jlchucker]

Newtmaker, I don't know if you've ever tried casting your own projectiles or not, but a good bullet for your new 357 might be the Lee (current version) of their 125 grain roundnose flatpoint. I bought one of these molds a few months ago to try some cast loads in my own Rossi, and found that they consistently shoot minute-of-clay-pigeon-fragment at the 50 yard berm at my gun club, using 38 special cases. I cast mine from wheelweights mixed with a bit of pure lead, and they weigh out at 130 grains.

[Griff]

"Round" takes all forms when it comes to bullet noses. As long as the "round" in the bullet you use describes a ½ circle, AND, you're stickin' to light .38 Specials, you should be ok. If there's less than a nice smooth arc, you are approaching a point... and points are bad. Some rifles can feed SWCs just fine. Especially ones that have been tuned by Kate Kiowa Jones, aka "the Rossi Specialist". Take a gander around his website.