Rossi Puma model 92

20 inch barrel, 10 shot capacity, .357 magnum caliber.

What a piece of shit...

Well, for a factory new gun, yes it is a piece of shit. Got it home, ran several rounds through it, no snags.

Took it out to the range, NOTHING would feed. And I mean NOTHING. My best luck was with some .357 rem 125gr. JHP's.... The first round to be chambered (last round loaded) would ALWAYS jam up, wedged halfway-inserted in the firing chamber. Usually the next one would suffer a similar fate. Each jam required prying with a precision screw driver to hook the rim of the case and pull it out of it's jam.

This continued for about... I dunno fifty rounds, give or take. I got ONE good volley of ten fast shots, but most often I'd be lucky and surprised each time a shell fed without snagging or jamming.

Now, I've heard Rossi Puma's can be 'a bit rough out of the box'.... but this was just plain SHIT!

I noticed there was consistent damage on each rim, a characteristic little nic in each rim, in the same spot.

So I came home and ripped the gun apart on my bed. I don't know all the names of the parts I had to fix, but there is part of the extractor, that pushes the bullet along the carrier ramp up into the breech. This had some rough 'digs' and 'dings' from I dunno shitty machineing or what... File and 800 grit wet-or-dry completely recontoured that part to a shape I felt would be more proper, with a mirror-smooth camming surface to boot. Then there were these 'grooves' along the sides of the reciever, I guess they are supposed to guide the rim of the cartridge up an angle. They were shit. Rough, full of tooling/machineing marks that kept snagging the rim. Took care of it. I also shimmed one side to bring it in, closer to case-tollerange width. There was too much extra room in there and I don't think the cases were being guided well, as they had almost enough room to fit in one groove and pop out of the other. Some thicknesses of copper sheet made a pretty good little shim.

Then I figured while I was at it, I'd smooth any other interfacing parts for a better fit. And while I was at it, I thinned out the loading gate spring with a file until it was about half-strength, to save my bloody fingertips when reloading.

Also clipped a bit off the extractor spring, because I was tired of calling the next area code to ask if they'd found my shot brass anywhere.

Also took some off the hammer spring, but left the trigger spring alone cause it didn't bother me.

Threw it all back together, and the action works smooth as silk...I would imagine a well-worn smooth, reliable older rifle would feel about the same.

Feeds flawlessly, everything pushes right up the ramp and in, not the slightest trace of binding.