This Sunday I took 3 lever guns out shooting - My Winchester Big Bore 94 in .375 Win (early production, 1978 BB00018xx serial number) my 1973 "shooter" Model 94 in .30-30 and my Rossi 92 in .45 Colt.
I noted while shooting my usual .38-55 level 245 gr cast bullet loads in my .375 Win that it is developing two hairline cracks along the upper shoulders of the tang. On closure inspection and with some careful positioning of back lighting you can see a very fine gap between stock and receiver on the top of the stock where it meets the receiver and a mis matched angle at the front of the stock where it meets the receiver. Given those faults, all the recoil forces are placed on the shoulder of the tang, and the stock screw through the tang. It's not a large gap but it's enough to cause issues. And it's a QA failure on a WInchester XTR at a time when they were actually building pretty good carbines.
(As an aside, it had been an unfired safe queen until a previous owner left it too long in the safe after handling it, with some vey small rust freckles forming where his hand had been around the receiver. Not noticeable from more than a few inches away once addressed and oiled, but enough to kill the collector value and cause him to sell it to me for a great price where I promptly put it to work as a shooter. So it's 37 years old, but has only been shot a couple years and still has a fairly low round count.)
So…thinking I'll need to fix it by relieving some wood in the shoulder area, and by filling in the gap with some discreetly applied acraglas, before I shoot it again, I put it way and got my Rossi Model 92 out to shoot. I noted the wood in that area of the stock looks like it grew there - which is good as my every day 250 gr cast bullet .45 Colt load develops the same velocity as my 245 gr .38-55/.375 Win cast bullet load.
Rossi may get a few wrong now and then, but they did a great job on mine, and it's one of those rifles that I like more every time I shoot it.
