gpurp
Member
I got this little Rossi 92 carbine in 45LC on a trade and was excited and all being it was the first lever gun I'd ever owned. The guy I got it from said the lever had to be worked firmly to get the cartridges to chamber. Well I worked it hard and maybe half the rounds would chamber. We're talking round nose lead cowboy loads and a mixture of handloads with 250gr XTP bullets. Both seemed to be equally hard to chamber. I was having to go beyond firm and nearly thought I was going to break something. It was unusable for my wife and she handed it back to me after a couple shots with a disapproving frown.
So I started looking closely at what might be hanging up and I was convinced the carrier was pointing the bullet nose too high during chambering. I thought the bullet was binding on the top of the chamber as it loaded. It turns out that was not the problem. I made a couple dummy rounds and cycled the action slowly while looking at it under a bright light. Immediately I saw how the cartridge head was having a hard time riding up over the rear cartridge guides. The brass is supposed to ride the guides as it moves forward and the rear gets lifted upwards into a horizontal position so it goes straight into the chamber.
The angle of the cartridge guides were a tad too steep there was where the brass was binding. I took a half round jewelers file and started reducing the angle of both the left and right guides right at the top. Going very very slow I started filing a little bit off each side and then testing with the dummy rounds. Within 10 min there was a definite improvement. Within 20 min I could cycle the action normally. I can even cycle blunt nose lead bullets without any issues. Can't wait to load up a new batch of 45LC and go kill some soda cans.
So I started looking closely at what might be hanging up and I was convinced the carrier was pointing the bullet nose too high during chambering. I thought the bullet was binding on the top of the chamber as it loaded. It turns out that was not the problem. I made a couple dummy rounds and cycled the action slowly while looking at it under a bright light. Immediately I saw how the cartridge head was having a hard time riding up over the rear cartridge guides. The brass is supposed to ride the guides as it moves forward and the rear gets lifted upwards into a horizontal position so it goes straight into the chamber.
The angle of the cartridge guides were a tad too steep there was where the brass was binding. I took a half round jewelers file and started reducing the angle of both the left and right guides right at the top. Going very very slow I started filing a little bit off each side and then testing with the dummy rounds. Within 10 min there was a definite improvement. Within 20 min I could cycle the action normally. I can even cycle blunt nose lead bullets without any issues. Can't wait to load up a new batch of 45LC and go kill some soda cans.
