Rossi R92 .357 magnum lever action rifle – hands on review

Look at this gun. What a thing of beauty, eh? How could you drag this thing through briars and brambles on your way to your deer stand? Polished stainless steel, close-grained hardwood stock… this rifle is built to not only harvest deer (or whatever you use it for) – it’s meant to look good while doing that. I like Rossi lever action rifles. I owned one in .45 Colt for a good while, and took deer with it. I swapped it to a good friend, a contractor, in exchange for work on our house. He, in turn, took deer with it as well with my handloads. It has proven its worth. It was a plain-jane model – wood stock with blued metal. The thing shot well, though, and handled my 260-grain cast flat point bullet handloads with ease. It tended to put most of those bullets in a pretty small circle at 50 yards. It held 10 cartridges, and was easy to tote around and shoot.

That brings us to our rifle-of-the-day… the Rossi R92 in .357. Available in either blue or stainless in calibers .357 to .454 Casull, the breakdown is as follows…

• Five models in .357 Magnum, in polished black or stainless. Octagonal barrel available.
• Six models in .44 Magnum in the same finishes.
• Four models in .45 Colt in the same finishes.
• One model in .454 Casull, polished stainless.

There are also two models in .22 LR. I have reviewed them – check out that review for an overview of that Rossi gun, in two finishes. That makes 18 different lever guns made by our Brazilian maker. But, what is Rossi? Let’s look at what I said about the company in that review…

A Bit Of History

Rossi has been making guns since 1889, when Amadeo Rossi founded the company. Located now in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil, the company has been building guns for 132 years and is a large maker of lever action rifles. In 1997, BrazTech International was created in order to be the exclusive importer of Rossi guns in North America. Before that, their guns were distributed by Interarms, located in Alexandria, Virginia. Rossi is now owned by Taurus, and distribution is handled by the parent company. The Rossi company is still run by family members and is dedicated to producing the best firearms it can.

I’ve also owned a couple of Rossi revolvers – a snub-nosed .357 and one with a six-inch barrel. They both had highly-polished metal areas and rubber grips. The longer one was a tack driver. It’s too bad that Rossi doesn’t make handguns any more. They were a good buy for the money. The company has shown, in my opinion, a marked increase in production quality since Taurus bought them. Mating edges are straighter, finishes more even, metal-to-metal fit is very nice… I like the newer product a lot. You get a lot of gun for your money with the R92.

If you must have a safety, at least make it unobtrusive. This one works well.

Traditional buckhorn rear sight

Stainless barrel band

The brass-beaded front sight post

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Range Time with the R92

Factory 125-grain JHP … not sure what happened here!

Handload: 160-grain cast SWC over 7.1 grains of Long Shot

I ventured out to my backyard range on a blustery, cold day recently with the shiny R92. I set up a few targets at about 45 yards and went back to my bench. I managed to put some holes in the targets, but did nothing really notable. It wasn’t the gun, for sure – I owned another Rossi R92 that was more than accurate enough, and (as I described above) had taken deer. But, the ammo shortage put a definite crimp on the shooting activities. I just didn’t have enough factory .357 (or even .38 Special) on hand to give the gun a fair trial. It is fairly obvious that more exploration would need to be done in order to find a load that was accurate enough to hunt deer or other similar-sized game with. That would entail trying several different factory loads. But, with ammo in such short supply these days, I resorted to shooting just two loads – first, the only factory .357 load I had – a Fiocchi 125-grain JHP load and my tried-and-true handload listed above. I knew from the get-go that I was probably not going to shoot stellar groups with the small amount of ammo that I had. I also would probably not have readers (after looking at my wonderful, one-hole-targets) run to their cars to head out to buy this rifle simply because of its accuracy that I so proficiently demonstrated. Truth be told, I just wanted to shoot this rifle for two reasons: first, to see if all that “shiny-ness” might put me off my aim, and also to compare it to the other R92 I owned in .45 Colt. It did very well in both categories.

Suitable Loads

Let’s talk for just a moment about using the .357 to hunt deer-sized game. Some folks say that the .357 is not enough for whitetails, while others may read those comments about the .357 not being enough as they pull deer steaks out to grill that they harvested with that “inadequate” .357. I would agree that the round is marginal at best when using a revolver, but the round out of a rifle barrel becomes a different beast. You would need to use a heavy-bullet-heavy-load combination in order for the round to be at its best on deer-sized game. Once you found that load for this rifle, I wouldn’t hesitate to take it afield during deer firearms season. (I might have second thoughts, though, about taking this beautifully-finished stainless wonder into the scratchy, briar-y woods). 

At any rate, this 92 is but one of many variations on the traditional lever rifle theme, the gun that has probably taken more deer than any other action type. I have no doubt that, once you’ve found the proper load, you should have much success on the hunt. One factor that will help you in the field is the gun’s excellent, less-than-four-pound trigger… It was a joy to shoot.

Summing Up

If you are in the market for a lever rifle in a pistol caliber like .357 Magnum, you need to check this gun out. Whether you get this dressy version or the more subdued blued metal/hardwood stock, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. And, if you are one who likes manual safeties, this gun will comply. From its traditional stock to its polished stainless barrel band, the R92 will be one gun that will not disappoint. Another point – if you want to bring out your inner cowboy, this again is one rifle that will do that for you. Although the .357 Magnum wasn’t around when the Winchester 1892 first saw the light of day, that rifle was a very effective tool for cowboys, ranchers, law enforcement and other, less-savory, characters. Thanks to companies like Rossi, the old lever guns are going stronger than ever. I have two more lever rifles on my immediate review docket, a Mossberg and a Henry, and have already looked at Rossi’s new .22LR lever rifle. the Rio Bravo. All these guns are well worth a second look. 

When the current no-guns-or-ammo situation eases, do yourself a favor and take a look at this slick, lightweight powerhouse – I think you’ll be glad you did. As always, keep ‘em in the black and stay safe!