Bucket List purchase: new Winchester/Miroku 1892 24-inch takedown in .357

K

Kindly Old Coach

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Inbound from the nice folks at Calgary Shooting Centre. Costing me the price of a set of dentures, but I'll survive on ramen and Boost. Been wanting a '92 since one of the Old Guard at my pistol club brought one in to show us in the 1990s. Just found it incredibly slick. And small. Been in the back of my mind for years. When I spotted the pistol grip model, with nice wood, and in takedown configuration, it was a case of "Here, take all my money." I'm getting old, and sometimes, well, you just say....

i plan to employ it against water-filled soda cans, hand-drawn paper targets depicting rabid porcupines and ravenous zombie coyotes, and possibly hanging steel plates. Also for self-defense against spruce grouse, if I get charged by one again while I'm looking for wild ginseng again. I'm equipped to handload .38 Special and .357 Magnum (one at a time, the old way), and I have a metric ton of Bullseye powder.

What would you have me know about this rifle, in the practical sense? By which I mean, loads to try, loads to avoid, alternatives to the factory semi-buckhorn sights, storage/carrying cases, action locks (I didn't think that bit through at all, to my chagrin), what group size to expect at 15 yards.... Anything.
 
Once at band camp ......while I was in a spruce......chased by a coyote......I was attacked by a spruce grouse.

Happy you started this spruce grouse defense thread.

But seriously, my 92 44mag has become my favorite toy. Cans die well, fireballs at dusk, giggles and grins only limited by reloading supplies. Not a miroku....just a Rossi. What's not to like about Mioku, one of the best manufacturers in the world.
 
nowarningshot said:
Happy you started this spruce grouse defense thread.
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Ain't my first one! The last time, the consensus was that something between .404 Jeffery and .600 Nitro Express would be the bare minimum. I therefore started looking for surplus Boys anti-tank rifles and 20mm Oerlikons, despairing. But, like, five years later, I realized the membership were joshing me.
 
Its actually a snap to mount a red dot on a 92 or similar action...build your own tang mount easily with a couple short pieces of alum angle, 3 or 4 screws and a short piece of Picatiny rail mount. Tooling needed : drill ( Press is best but hand will work), hacksaw, screwdrivers & a file. Just mount on the tang the way you would a Lyman type peep and position the picatiny above the hammer

It aint fancy but I have mounted red dots on 1/2 dozen vintage lever guns of various makes & models so I can shoot them with old eyes.
 
Ellwood Epps' website shows stock on a number of Mirokus in a variety of calibres which I occasionally lust over but the $3K+ for a deluxe model is a bummer.
 
The thing arrived today. Very nice wood. Metal-to-metal fit and lockup are bank-vault quality. Nearly reached for a pipe wrench to experiment with the takedown aspect. Buckhorn rear sight needs to go. Front sight, though, is a delicate miracle of design engineering. Trigger pull is crisp, 98% creepless, but lawyer-heavy, so we'll see what Remington High-Pressure Hinge Grease ("trigger job in a jar," as Layne Simpson once wrote) does for that.

I need to check if my ancient RCBS .38/.357 die-set can do roll crimps as opposed to taper crimps. Can't recall.

It's a grown-ass rifle, 7 lbs with that long barrel, so it might tend to limit the duration of my armed hikes with it. But, steel buttplate. Woe betide any rabid cottontails or enraged emperor penguins I might be charged by on the forest trails. Quite a hefty, sturdy cudgel.

The rebound hammer requires a certain suspension of disbelief. I had to feed thin strips of paper between hammer and firing-pin, off-safe and on-safe, to be convinced that the hammer was indeed smacking the firing pin when the thing was dry-fired off-safe. But, yes, it's working. Creepy fast rebound, though.

Bonus: Winchester ships these with a plastic-coated cable-style bore lock in the box. So there's the safe storage compliance aspect sorted, upon receipt.

Minus: The rollmarks are straight, but verbose, and ugly.

Overall first impression: Worth the exorbitant price? Don't know yet. I'll tell you more once I've grouped a few at 15 yards. If this thing (with me behind it) can put three rounds within the base diameter of an espresso cup at rock-throwing distances, I'll likely keep it. Stay tuned.
 
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SHELL SHUCKER said:
I love the Model 92's, but it would sure be sweet if makers like Miroku or Rossi came out with an angle eject version of these so folks could mount a compact optic on 'em. ;)
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My Rossi is drilled and tapped under the rear sight for just that.... Drift out rear sight, attach rail, mount red dot or scout scope.
 
Kindly Old Coach said:
Inbound from the nice folks at Calgary Shooting Centre. Costing me the price of a set of dentures, but I'll survive on ramen and Boost. Been wanting a '92 since one of the Old Guard at my pistol club brought one in to show us in the 1990s. Just found it incredibly slick. And small. Been in the back of my mind for years. When I spotted the pistol grip model, with nice wood, and in takedown configuration, it was a case of "Here, take all my money." I'm getting old, and sometimes, well, you just say....

i plan to employ it against water-filled soda cans, hand-drawn paper targets depicting rabid porcupines and ravenous zombie coyotes, and possibly hanging steel plates. Also for self-defense against spruce grouse, if I get charged by one again while I'm looking for wild ginseng again. I'm equipped to handload .38 Special and .357 Magnum (one at a time, the old way), and I have a metric ton of Bullseye powder.

What would you have me know about this rifle, in the practical sense? By which I mean, loads to try, loads to avoid, alternatives to the factory semi-buckhorn sights, storage/carrying cases, action locks (I didn't think that bit through at all, to my chagrin), what group size to expect at 15 yards.... Anything.
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Pictures of the gun when you get it home and cleaned up.
Pictures of the gun and not your dentures ;)
Thanks for sharing !
Rob
 
Make sure your barrel is ultra clean & try this at the outdoor range before actually hunting small game.

Handload or purchase 148 grain full wadcutters. You probably will have to single load them by hand directly into the chamber. Try them out on targets 25 yards.

You will be surprised the noise level with this ammunition.
Added bonus for hunting.
Nearby wildlife may not react as you thought they would normally. The only downside is they dirty up your barrel rather quickly so after a day of hunting I myself would choose to clean that barrel. You don't want a bullet stuck partway down that nice long barrel!
 
SuperCub said:
Welcome back KOC ...... Haven't seen you here for many moons. Hope all is well. :)
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Hey, Supe! Thank you! Doin' pretty good for the shape I'm in. Been pursuing other interests for the past decade. (Japanese flower-arranging, identification of edible wild plants, writing extremely crude fiction, watching films about bank heists, planning bank heists, mega yacht theft, making lampshades out of watered silk, competitive gin-drinking, learning how to sharpen knives while blindfolded, taking First Aid courses, re-learning how to write cursive with my off-hand, debating Turkish prison officials regarding the inadequacy of my cell and rations in their own language, having my teeth capped with pure tantalum...)

You know, sometimes, life just gets in the way.

I still recall our conversations about the .35 Whelen. One day.
 
Brutus said:
Handload or purchase 148 grain full wadcutters...You don't want a bullet stuck partway down that nice long barrel!
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Mousefart 148-grain wadcutter target loads were what I used to eat for breakfast, and I've been looking at all kinds of load data and forum anecdotes since before I decided to buy this rifle. Having one stuck in this subway tunnel of a tube is a genuine concern. I'm thinking I'll have to load on the high side, based on a long thread I found on on of the American forums. Guy had that exact problem, with fairground-light powder charges. About twenty people chimed in to tell him that what works in a pistol or revolver might not have the oomph required to make it all the way out of a grown-ass rifle, because physics. That's stuck in my mind.
 
gristle111 said:
i just order a Rossi 45 colt 20" Blue from CSC and a set of the above sight from rusty wood. Should be a nice combo.
Congrats on your purchase sound like a real beauty!!
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Merci. I was looking at his site earlier this week, and have been thinking about asking him about the windage-adjustable version of this:

https://www.rustywood.ca/shop_home/marble-arms-rear-sight-folding-leaf-replacement/
 
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