Hi Kate,
When I picked-up them cartridges yesterday, I mentioned that it was a bit of a gamble if they would even cycle through my Rossi Ranch Hand. Their longer-than-standard length (combined with the chunky Wide Flat Nose of the 305 gr hard-cast lead slug) would be a challenge in the Rossi 92 action, which was originally designed for bottle-nosed bullets.
Well, a few minutes ago I sent an email to Steve Young at Steve's Guns down in Texas. A few days ago he had responded to a related email question with a thorough and detailed 325 word reply ... explaining the design and engineering issues and ending with a "luck-a-the-draw" answer to my question ... "Some do, and some don't."
Hi Steve,
Just a quick note to tell you that I “lucked-out” with those longish 305 gr WFN hard cast lead .44 Magnum cartridges from Hunting Shack Munitions in my Ranch Hand.
I bought them in Calgary yesterday afternoon but, fearing that I’d be disappointed, I didn’t try them until a few minutes ago. And … hooray … they cycled flawlessly. I think that I mentioned to you that I’d had to return the firearm to the Canadian distributor/importer (Wanstall’s, in Mission, B.C.) in the summer of 2011 as soon as I’d received it. It had major feeding problems and they were going to fix it under warranty. Knowing that their go-to gunsmith was going to have the gun in pieces anyways, I sent along your tune-up kit and video … and asked that they have-at-‘er … and bill me accordingly.
The gun has worked flawlessly since that time, and they graciously declined to bill me for the kit installation. I suspect that their skilled massaging (with your Texas engineering) was responsible for today’s good news.
Thanks again.
R.