I've got a Rossi that I bought about 4.5 years ago. A friend got a new one back in the Spring and I did the slicking up work for her to use for the same cowboy action shooting that I do.
On mine the wood finish and outer metal finish was of a higher quality than the new one from this past spring. But I found that the insides were actually a little nicer than what I had seen in my own older model. Not a huge difference but certainly noticeable.
Both guns out of the box were a little stiff. But only to the point where the newness and stiffness would have smoothed itself out after a few hundred lever cycles. After that it would have been smooth enough but the hard springs in the ejector and mainspring would have still left the rifle with a pretty tough lever cycle. The sort that will quickly leave marks on the backs of the shooter's fingers from cycling the lever.
What I found is that a little basic stoning of edges and some flats on the action along with a $25 spring kit makes a HUGE difference. The rifle goes from needing to cycle with a firm push and pull with a few bumps along the way to a slick and flickable loading of the lever back and forth and a delightfully light trigger pull. It really is a "night and day" difference.
So while the exterior isn't that pretty the guts are solid. And given the relatively low price of $560 to $600 depending on when and where you find it it's low enough to invest in the spring kit or the kit and two hours work from a smith to de-burr and slick up the action. The extra $150 to $200 for the full meal deal work will give you a rifle that truly makes you smile to cycle the lever and you will find yourself cycling it while watching old Rifleman re-runs....
And unless you truly MUST have the 16" carbine model I'd suggest you stay with the 20 inch model. Why? Because the 20 will hold 10 rounds of .357Mag or .45Colt in the tube for cowboy action shooting. So if you buy and try and simply hate it and don't want to invest in the slicking up work to make you actually like the rifle then you can easily sell it for little loss.
In terms of accuracy for plinking all the Rossis I've shot (about 4 of them now) were darn nice. They aren't barrel floated benchrest guns by any means. But with old guy eyes and .357Mag rounds I had no trouble consistently hitting an 8 inch gong at 200 yards two out of three times. And this was without re-setting the sights from my close in cowboy ammo. I simply held at around 6 inchs above the gong. So I didn't actually have a view of the gong itself.
Myself and others shooting the .357Mag chambered gun do find that it'll feed .38Spl but you want to be using round nose or round nose flat point bullets and a slower and more deliberate cycling speed. To be able to get up to cowboy action rapid fire the shortness of the .38's causes lots of jams where the longer .357's slip right in. But the difference in speed to allow .38's isn't much. Mostly it's a case where you need to push forward, pause there for literally 1/4 of a second THEN pull back with a quick motion but not a flick. With the .357mags the gun cycles as fast as I can flick forward and back. But to get to THAT point took a little more tuning of the action. Mostly smoothing the lower rear of the chamber out a little and carefully polishing and shimming the cartridge guide rails in the walls of the receiver.
