Rossi Rifleman

I can report tonight that the problem I had removing the hammer screw has been sorted.

Problem of my own creation really as I used a piece of wire, to retain the compressed spring, that was too thin and, subsequently, the wire bent and slid up inside the spring. Then followed the problem of being able to re-compress the spring in order to put a sturdier piece of wire in the hole to hold it back.

Well, with a bit of effort, and a lot of swearing and cussing, I managed to get it sorted and all put back together and functioning as it should.

If I have learned one thing from this sorry episode it's this.. "You are 70, you don't need to be doing this stuff".



PS: many thanks to all who offered suggestions and advice.

How'd you end up getting the spring on?

I had a block of wood with a slot cut in it that was the exact width of the hammer. I slid the hammer into the slot, inverted it to the strut and spring were pointing up, gripped the spring with some pliers and slid it down. Once I'd got far enough my wife slid a small nail into the hole.. job done..!!

That was the end of my major problem.. but, on taking down the rifle this far, I kept finding what appeared to be dry flakes of something like Locktite in really odd places. There was some on each end of the hammer screw (I wondered why it took so much effort to remove it), there appeared to be some spread around the edges of the lower tang and the inner edge of the buttstock..!!

Anyway it was all cleaned off, rifle re-assembled, function tested to my satisfaction and I went and had a lie down in a dark room...!!

ManxTom wrote:I kept finding what appeared to be dry flakes of something

Tom, there's no need to be embarrassed. Did you know that over half of all guns experience gundruff at some point in their life? But, I'm here to tell you, there is something you can do to relieve that horrible, embarrassing itching and flaking.

You should head down to your local gun shop and get some Hoppe's MEDICATED No. 9
Its recommended by over 92 percent of gunsmiths surveyed, so try it, and you'll be glad you did! The ladies will be glad too!

my favorite after shave



jd

Mixes pretty good with bourbon too!

I feel truly blessed and consider it a great privilege that forum members show such concern for my wellbeing. Indeed I did rid my R92 of the unwanted 'gundruff' with a more than liberal swabbing with Hoppes and it has now been restored to its normal judiciously oiled condition.

As the form and function does not appear to have been impeded by this 'gundruff', and I'm certain what has been removed will not have harmed it in any way, I have no overwhelming desire to 'inspect' the rifle's internals any further than I already have. The action feels slick enough for me not to want to 'slick it up' further.

I feel I can now return to reading an excellent book, written about the man who knows more about the 1892 lever rifle than any of us mere mortal will ever know, John Moses Browning, and the book is "The Guns of John Moses Browning" by Nathan Gorenstein ISBN: 978-1-9821-2921-7, Published by Scribner.

Find a copy of Curt Gentry's book, written with Val Browning.... all about John Mose', its a great read.

Since someone slathered loctite over a number of the screws and such I recommend you be on the lookout for that hammer screw becoming loose as the action is worked over time. In fact I might run the action manually dropping the hammer a thousand cycles just to see if the torque alone would keep the screw in place.

My reasoning is that there's roughly three reasons to slather loctite on a part. One, that the person in question just does it by habit with EVERYTHING. TWO, that there was some problem with the part that the owner/user thought could be fixed by gluing it in place. THREE, because there were some sort of directions or process that was being followed that recommended that the part be secured in that way. I haven't seen the third possibility with respect to a hammer screw in any of the lever actions so that leaves the first two possibilities and if it was the habit of the previous owner there's no real concern but if it was trying to fix a problem then that problem may reappear.

FOUR, they like that great creamy polyclycol-promethecrylate taste! Its gluten and sugar free! But can be habit forming.