Stopped by my old place of work yesterday and saw a Rossi over action in 357. It has a stainless finish and was priced at $370.

Does anyone have experience with the Rossi ?

$370 arms decent, they were selling on gun. Broker for $500ish.

I've got one with a 16" barrel and its blued. Love it!

I ground down the tits on the safety and cold blued it. I was getting jabbed in the palm when i was carrying it...

I also took it completely apart and de burred it and slathered it in valve grinding compound and reassembled it and cycled the action a buncha times and then cleaned it. it runs smoothly now.

I reload and use a roundnose flat point cast projectile. I found that powdercoating reduced leading.....

They can be very finicky with .38 Specials. They are sensitive to Overall length. The also don't really like to run "fast". If you're looking for a Cowboy Action Shooting gun, and want to be a "Speed demon", I'd look elsewhere. For informal plinking and fun, It can be a fine gun. Their quality is "hit and miss" so look it over carefully before buying it. They are also a "Stone cold bitch" to take apart and reassemble compared to a Marlin or Winchester 1873 clone.

I have an older one, without the top safety. I am very happy with it. It shoots as good as my Marlin 1894 in .357 Mag. Better with some cast bullets. I have never tried .38 Specials in it. I would have to think long and hard before I bought one with the top mounted safety. Any of the classic lever guns with an extra safety bothers me. Every time I look at one, I think about how much of our freedom we are losing in incremental ways, and it upsets me. I have a pretty good selection of lever guns and with the exception of the Savage 99s, none were originally equipped with safeties.

Thank you for the info everyone.

I will go check it out in detail on my next day off. I had a Marlin 1894 in .357 and .44.

I had to sell them unfortunately, and yes they were JM stamped.

I just saw the rossi, and thought cheap plinking replacement for $337 + tax and tag, and wheels starting turning. I really can't get hurt buying at that price either.

Rolan is spot on about disassembly (as with anything designed by John Moses Browning...it's been said he loved a puzzle )...after you do it a time or two it gets easier. These rifles really benefit from a spring kit. This Aussy YouTuber has good info on the Rossi 92 clone...my 92 in .45 Colt has been 100% after installing a spring kit.



Link to original video: https://youtu.be/fsFDc4s9V5A




Link to original video: https://youtu.be/K0r0l5MRNaU

This guy has great spring kits...I would also go to a stainless magazine spring and follower over the plastic follower.

http://thesmithshop.com/rossispringkits.html

http://thesmithshop.com/magfollow.html

I wish I was as fast as this Cowboy (and as accurate with my 92...it will never happen)




Link to original video: https://youtu.be/YDfN6KOK4N0

I have a Rossi 16” and a Puma 24”. Both have been reliable at feeding both 38s and 357s. The 16” is the smoothest levergun ive ever shot. The puma has some hiccups racking fast but its a quirk easily worked around when shooting deliberately and focused. I absolutely love them both.

The Puma is on loan-out to a friend down in the Mojave, and he, his nephew, his sister, some visiting friends, etc all fell in love with the gun as well.

Don't do it. They will suck you in to buying more cowboy type guns. I bought a 92 a little while ago for $500 new and was happy at that price. Like I said, the problem comes when it is not enough because now you have to get a SAA pistol to go with it, then you want another lever gun and it doesn't stop. I don't know if it is age or just realizing how neat/cool these lever guns really are. For $350, I don't think you can go wrong,if not for the fun of it alone.