Rossi's R92 454 Casull Part I

Facebook tending has driven me back to music. You know, the kind of music that makes you listen to the words, tap your toes and think how certain songs do a better job of expressing the facts of your life than you ever could.

After half an hour spent on our Real Guns Facebook page, the overwhelming number of positive and/or constructive comments are lost to the handful of folks who cause me to believe the sun will not rise in the morning… which certainly doesn’t result in a good frame of mind for researching or writing. So I set aside Facebook, go to YouTube, put on headsets and listen to music for ten minutes before picking up a rifle for examination. Maybe Smokey Robinson & The Miracles 1964 “You Really Got a Hold On Me” or “Shop Around”… all better.

Rossi out Marlin’s Marlin…

I’ve owned a Marlin Model 336 C since it was new in 1957. Slender forearm and buttstock, unadorned with checkering, light weight and fast pointing… not me, the rifle. I’ve also owned a steady stream of Marlin’s since that time, right up to the modern Guide Guns with bulbous forearms and buttstock… also the rifle, not me. While I like modern Marlins of the past dozen years or so, they just haven’t had the feel of a classic saddle carbine.

When the Rossi R92 was pulled from its retail box, the first thing that came to mind was how much it felt like my 1957 Marlin, which is probably the biggest compliment I could pay to a lever action rifle. The stocks have that warm walnut, rubbed oil finish, the bluing is decent and the rifle is light and fast pointing.

Big Chamber – 454 Casull

As a derivative, the Rossi R92 doesn’t stray far from the original, which means it is a tough, short action lever action rifle. The  Winchester Model 1892 was designed by John Browning as a stronger, lighter replacement for the Winchester Model 1873, a scaled down Model 1886, intended for the 44-40 and similar short cartridges. With vertical locking lugs and a closed receiver bottom, the Model 1892 design is a substantial lever action rifle.

Chambering a Model 1892 for this cartridge is an ambitious undertaking. Not many years ago, an Italian manufactured product, sold under the Puma brand, was offered in 454 Casull. We had two; one that failed, producing split cases, blown primers and a split stock and a second, a replacement, that resulted in the same. That product was withdrawn from sale in the U.S., but this is not that product, nor is it associated with those companies. The Rossi product is manufactured in Brazil by the very modern, state of the art manufacturer Taurus and sold and serviced in the United States by BrazTech L.C. in Miami, FL. There have been no similar problems experienced with this product, so Taurus has apparently fixed out how to make this combination in a quality firearm.

Compact, but beefy… a Model 1886 Mini Me

Similar to the Model 1886, the Model 1892 has a solid bottom receiver, with primary breech lock up achieved by closing the lever, which runs large twin locking bolts up through channels in the walls of the rifle’s receiver, that also pass through channels in the rifle’s bolt.

The rifle’s bolt is also aligned to bore centerline and held to that center through the use of rails on bolt sides that locate to a set of channels cut longitudinally in the walls of the receiver. It is a very strong and precise locking – alignment arrangement… which is should be when charged with containing the 454 Casull’s 65,000 PSI generated levels of bolt thrust and hoop stress.

A little short sighted…

The R92 is not drilled and tapped to facilitate scope mounting. The side of the receiver is also not drilled and tapped to facilitate peep sight mounting.

Contrary to what I have heard and seen in review, the Rossi R92 does not have a Patridge front sight. While it certainly has a rectangular post, it also has a flat face round brass bead. The rear sight is a semi-buckhorn type. In combination, these sights are a good match for the 454 Casull.

Bayonet?

A telescoping magazine inner tube facilitates front end loading… like a giant tubular magazine rimfire rifle. The R92 may also be loaded from the side of the receiver for those who enjoy having their thumb nail cuticle pushed back to the knuckle.

High price expectations, mid price appearance

The Rossi is not a cheap firearm, even though the brand tends to represent lower cost firearms. In fact, with a $742 MSRP, it tops Marlin’s spiffy $729 Model 1884, but does best Winchester’s current $1,069 Model 1892 and Legacy Sport, you’ve got to be kidding me, $1,053 Winchester Model 92 clone.

The Brazilian mahogany stock is capped with a relatively non-resilient, vented recoil pad that does not cushion recoil as would any pf the current generation pads like a basic Decelerator.  The combination does not look bad at all and may, in fact, give the rifle a bit of classic lever gun appearance.

There is nothing wrong with materials Taurus selected or overall part fit and nuts and bolts assembly, however, material handling during assembly could use some serious improvement as thus rifle had many light scuffs, spots and scrapes. Not the kind that happen when a rifle bumps against something, but rather more of the careless installation of a tubular magazine or roughly finished barrel bands. The kind of handling marks that work through a rifle’s bluing and into bare metal. The subject rifle has a hair line scratch that ran 8″ along the length of its tubular magazine.

Outside of these little annoying barrel, barrel band and tubular magazine scratches, the rifle is very clean, both wood and metal work. It is the type of problem that is corrected with improved material handling, a little more training and oversight that has a higher standard of acceptability.

Customer Service…

Rossi tends to be incommunicado, which leaves the false impression that the company’s philosophy is “Buy our products, then go away”.  I took the R92 454 Casull out of its box and saw no reference on the rifle, or in its manual, or on the Rossi web site that referred to the rifle’s use with 45 Colt ammunition. Headspace is the same and interchangeability in a rifle is not the norm as some folks think, so I attempted to call for clarification.

After working my way through the typical automated menu system, I was greeted with a recorded message from Mark Kresser, Taurus’s President since 1911, who advised that Rossi was inundated with calls to customer service and typical queue time was in excess of an hour. He went on to say that they were operating with extended hours, including Saturday in an effort to accommodate customers. Of course, this begged the question “Why so many calls to customer service?”, “Who are the people hanging on for an hour and perpetuating the queue?” and “Who in the world talked the President of Taurus into directly associate himself with this customer service mess?”

It would take BrazTech about a week of data collection to determine crewing required to sustain a credible queue time and then ongoing tracking could refine the crewing process. Race tracks use the technique at betting windows as do large scale, short cycle maintenance organizations that service unscheduled outages. Companies that want to keep customer service on a tight budget tend to assign one person to the task and let a queue build until people give up and hang up. I can’t say one way or the other as no one answers their phone.

Overall

It might seem, after reading down to here, that I’m not a fan of this rifle. Not true. I actually like this little carbine. There are areas that could be addressed to make this a really nice rifle. Improving quality of assembly and having a responsive customer service effort would represent a huge improvement.

I don’t care for the safety. It reminds me of that terrible safety Heritage Manufacturing puts on some of their single action rimfire revolvers and it detracts from the R92’s otherwise traditional appearance.

The core firearm is very good. Part dimensional fit and finish is very good. The action actually is pretty slick and the trigger is crisp. The heft is right, the balance is good… it is a very solid firearms with decent accuracy. The wood fit is good, the finish is clean and it is very tough wood.

That said, we’re moving onto the handloading and live fire side of this project to see what works and what doesn’t and to get a sense for what level of power this can reliably product.