Rossi Rifleman

I haven't tried anything quite that wide or heavy in mine yet. So far mine has fed what I've tried.

I have a friend who was having problems with a truncated cone at 140 grains. It fed but had a hitch in the lever motion as the side of the bullet smacked the top of the chamber. In his case several 158 grain versions had no problem and 125 grain versions had no problem. Sometimes a shape and/or a length just hits a problem geometry.

If I hammer on the lever a few times like GasGuzzler suggested, I can jack it over the edge of the barrel with some scraping of the brass:


I also messed with seating the bullet incrementally deeper per Archer and Nashville's advice, and found that it runs through fine if I reduce OAL by 0.020". However, I just got a notification that the TC bullets I ordered are going to arrive about four weeks earlier than expected, so I'm going to mess around with those next week and plan to shoot these WFN bullets through the revolver they were meant for. I've at least learned to run some dummy cartridges through the rifle before shooting test loads.

As always, I appreciate the input. Yinz guys is great.

fyi, that rear peep unscrews so you are left with a big ol ghost ring.

Those puppies look mighty long

HaveBlue83 wrote:fyi, that rear peep unscrews so you are left with a big ol ghost ring.

Yeah, I have a second peep that is a little larger in diameter stored in a tin in the stock, too. It's nice to have options. I prefer the 1.5mm aperture at this distance from my eye for now.

Reese-Mo wrote:Those puppies look mighty long

The TC bullets I've been loading since my last post have been cycling great at this length. They also run well in my SP101.

I've seen some vertical stringing on some of my 10-shot groups on paper. In the next couple weeks I want to shoot without the forend and mag tube to see if messing with them might help the situation.

I shot my first ever rounds of NRA PCC lever action silhouette last weekend. It was a lot of fun. The Rossi is shooting better than me at this point. I think a cheek riser (maybe 3D printed?) is in my future. Maybe a trigger shim, too. So many ideas, and never enough time.

One thing I've seen induce vertical stringing that isn't particularly gun related is when the point of aim changes between shots to point of impact. Say the shot lands an inch high off the point of aim. The shooter shifts his next sight picture to the point where the bullet landed thus getting his next impact an inch higher off the initial aim point. I've seen guys stitch two or three rounds along the paper that way.

That's a good thought, but I'm shooting 6" diameter black targets at 100 yards. I'm not seeing the bullet holes until I walk to the target afterwards. It could be that I just have a tendency to pull shots high, but I still want to shoot with a floating barrel just to rule out some other possibilities.

From a coaching standpoint, vertical stringing can also be caused by firing at various points in your breathing cycle. As you breath in and out, your aim naturally shifts up & down slightly. If you make sure to always fire at the same point in your respiratory cycle, you'll reduce that variable. I usually suggest that folks fire at the bottom (exhale) of their cycle, when their lungs are fully relaxed. Give it a try and see if it helps.

This project is working out. I doubt the neighbors heard any commotion this morning.