Rossi Rifleman

Someplace in another thread that sort of drifted a bit, I mentioned my displeasure with the fairly large gap between the lever and the tang (and stock). The "fix" was to very, very (VERY) slightly relieve the hole in the lever for the bolt pin, which allowed the lever to swing up a bit more, and also allowed the locking lugs to better, more fully engage with the bolt and receiver.

The issue... was the lever friction plunger, that keeps the lever sort of "snicked" into place against the bottom of the shoulder stock and lower tang was not really engaging the tang very well. Too little protrusion, bad angle on the "nose" of the plunger, and the factory spring had already been "clipped" at the factory! What to do? Well... make a new plunger of course!

I tried a few things, but settled on some 5mm drill rod, which comes moderately tough. Its a bit of a bear to file actually but it can be filed with a good sharp file. Easier to grind.

So without further excuses...
That's what I did this afternoon. Took about an hour and a half, as the first attempt wasn't so good.... however the pictures show my #2 creation, and it worked out darn near perfect. The factory plunger mic'd out at .1955ish, and this rod was .195 on the nose. I used a vice and Dremel with various stones, rubber wheels, sanding drums and abrasive buffers to shape and smooth things out. A little bevel on the inside edge, and the forward "nose" has an offset, to hold the lever closer to the shoulder stock (now that it has room to do so). The first try of this part was good, with only a little more smoothing/rounding to the nose in order to slick it up just a bit. Also intentionally bubba'd the cross pin just a little (squeezed in the vice to upset one end a little), just to make it a tighter fit in the hole in the lever.

For the record - more material on the end of the plunger that touches the spring, so that there's a bit more tension. More material on the nose, so it sticks out more and engages better. The point of the nose is offset in a way that allows things to lock while the lever is closer to the stock.

There ya have it. I'm pretty pleased with the results, and naturally, I can always stick the old plunger back in if need be.

Just a little update.... I removed the plunger again, and very slightly altered the angle of the angled edge that serves to keep things in place when the lever is closed. Reason being, it was just a tad "short", and had a "snick" that shouldn't have been there. That pesky snick is gone, thankfully. The '92 not only stays shut with the lever close to the stock, but is a pretty slick in its own right. Don't want no race gun, do want reliability, and I feel all the tweakage has retained that reliability.

Nicely done!

Sweet. . Don't you love it when a plan comes together. How much longer did you have to make the new one?

Good question and I don't know the answer! Everything is relative to the ledge that constitutes the innermost part the groove. Adding some meat to the inside of that stud increases the spring tension and more importantly the spring preload. Adding material to the nose increases the amount of material that will be present when the stud is at rest. Judging from things.... Maybe .062 on the inside and just a little less on the nose. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule that can be applied. The actual length and even the angle on the nose is likely to vary depending on the lower tang and the lever itself.

Making the part was a bit of "by guess and by golly". The second part I made seemed to work pretty good when I stuck it in the lever, so I went with it.

You also have to remember that all of this was after the lever itself was relieved, allowing it to close all the way. The whole idea of the new stud is to retain the lever, when closed, closer to the lower tang.

One slight drawback is that the bolt mounted safety cannot be set in either direction with the lever fully locked against the lower tang. The bolt locking lugs interfere with a little projection on the safety. Big whoop!