speaking of lever fun--my rossi 92 44 mag

[stagpanther]

I have two rossi 16" carbines in 44 mag--that's how much I like them. They are the lever guns "I love to hate." Why, well, basically cause the barrels are very good; the action and trigger fair to good but the rest of it, including assembly, is generally poor to very poor. For those who like to dicker with their guns--which I do, though not necessarily as a result of paying lots of money for them--they are often a "labor of love."

This one I bought "slightly" used but recently dicovered the previous owner had bungled the forearm/barrel band by cutting a screw slot in front of the stock one into the barrel. She no shoot good. I fixed that with quicksteel, so have returned some decency to the shooting accuracy.

My next problem was my nikon pistol scope--which IIRC cost a bit north of $350--gave up the ghost and the elevation turret no longer worked (I have 4 other mid-range priced nikon scopes all of which eventually had turret failures). So I decided to give this leatherwood 2 x 7 scout scope a go. It appears to be made in that same Chinese factory that probably makes over 90% of all the world's firearms optics, so expectations are not high. Functionally, it gets the job done (at least on this first zeroing outing) but suffers from annoying distortion at the edge of the field of view due to inferior glass lens cutting--especially annoying since it's not very big to begin with--so peripheral awareness also suffers. It will have to do for now.

This is my Maine heavy woods hunter where even a 50 yd clear shot is rare, so I zero for 75 yds.

 

[Sarge]

Thanks for posting this stagpanther. I am in the market for a (20") 44 mag lever action and will probably go with the Rossi again, which at least has a 1:30 twist going for it.

I know first hand QC on these is a crapshoot. I've had three- a decent 16" 45 Colt, a crappy 16" 357 and my current 20" 45 Colt which is by far the slickest and most accurate of the three. That .357 was essentially an 80% kit with a serial number.

Accuracy with all of mine has been about what you're getting- real decent for a pistol-caliber carbine.

I also appreciate your honest opinion on the Leatherwood Scout.

 

[stagpanther]

You're welcome--did I mention this little son-of-gun weighs only 5 lbs and balances really well while navigating thick brush? That's probably the main reason I like the 16" configuration.

 

[stagpanther]

The one thing both my Rossi's had in common--uneven tension between the barrel and magazine tube caused erratic shooting--once that was relieved they both became accurate shooters.