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I'm awaiting a variation so as I can pick up a Rossi R92 16" barrel in .38special / .357 and was wondering what ammunition (bullet weight, brand etc) people favour for this rifle or generally for lever action rifles? I believe FMJ shouldn't be used but will stand corrected.

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Unsure about weight and such.

If you plan to use cast, learn from my mistake, slug the bore!!!

Ah, will do!
No, just factory loads to start with and then I'll look into reloading but buy bullet heads.

Dahonis wrote:Unsure about weight and such.

If you plan to use cast, learn from my mistake, slug the bore!!!

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Well it depends what you'll be doing with your Rossi. If it's 25-50 yard gallery type shooting and you need factory ammunition then you're quite limited. This is exactly the type of rifle/shooting where handloading makes sense, they are easy and cheap to load with results every bit as good or better than the factory stuff.

If you're rifle is chambered for .357, then I personally would shoot .357 cartridges in it, the fact that it will chamber and shoot .38 special doesn't make it a .38 special.

Normal load for this type of shooting would be something like a truncated cone lead bullet of 158 grains.

Cowboy loads:
http://www.aaronwheelergunsmith.co.uk/p ... flat-nose/

357 brass, 150 to 158grn semi wadcutter or round nosed bullet qith 5 grn of Unique or similar powder. If you use factory ammo on a 25M shoot, you will disadvantage yourself with the recoil---you may also be unpopular because of the noise and muzzle blast. Over the last 40yrs i must have shot around 80 to 100 thousand rounds of 357; still never fired a factory round.
Fred

If reloading go with magnum cases and data around the +P power range. Shop bought bullets will do well in .357s in my experience.

As for specifically factory made ammo for a Rossi, just about anything you can find will shoot pretty decently in one. My own Rossi, the Rossi’s of friends and two club Rossi’s attest to this.

If you can find factory .357 it will be expensive, loud and probably not ty best accuracy wise. As mentioned above, others will hate you for touching some factory offerings off, especially if an indoor range. Factory “cowboy loads” are again very expensive.

At the club we simply run PPU 158gn SWC though both guns. It’s cheap, around 13 quid a box and a acccurate enough to provide you with good scores when you do your bit.

There is no substitute for reloading, but PPU will do what you need at this time.

I use Sellier and Bellot 158gr Cowboy Action (.357 and .38) in my Marlin. I shot the .357 out to 100m at the range on Sunday.

Sim G wrote: At the club we simply run PPU 158gn SWC though both guns. It’s cheap, around 13 quid a box and a acccurate enough to provide you with good scores when you do your bit.

There is no substitute for reloading, but PPU will do what you need at this time.

Interesting.

My friend has a Rossi 92, and it really hates PPU .38spl SWC ammo, always jambs/miss-feeds it, so she's given up buying it.

It runs any .357 factory ammo perfectly, and any round-nose .38spl ammo.

The Rossis I've shot haven't liked .38 Special. One of them would chuck the live round out of the top because the lifter couldn't keep hold of it. The other would jam because the overall cartridge length was too short and the next round would jam the lifter. I personally use relatively low power .357s in my Chiappa 1892. My favourite is 6gr of VV N340 with a GM hard cast 158gr TC bullet. Accurate, low recoil but a bit more lunch than a .38

My Rossi prefers 357 length cases with 155 gn round nose bullets, which I load myself using Vitavhouri as that seems to be quite clean. I load them light to save on cost, they seem to be accurate enough. But Rossis are not precision items, the internal finish is very rough and they need a good bit of fettling to work reliably.