I ordered a Rossi Model 92 stainless in 44 Mag with a 24-inch barrel yesterday. I could be writing this as an admission of weakness, but this isn't AA. I did this with malice aforethought.
Do I regret all the stuff I've said previously regarding 44 Mag rifles, lever actions, etc.? No. However, I do believe the voices within cannot be disobeyed.
What got me down this path? I'll tell you truthfully, that I got tired of all the nudging. It seemed like the moment I finished that thread last June, I started getting constant reminders about lever guns and 44 Magnum. Even Hickock45 got in on the deal:
That showed up in my suggested videos over the summer. This is what got me thinking about 24-inch barrels.
I thought, back in October, the voices had gone silent. I went to my favorite LGS to pick up a Ruger GP100 that I've been playing with ever since. Up on the wall was a shiny Rossi 20-inch 44 Mag carbine. The manager saw me glance at it and brought it down. He and his brother have had an uncanny sense about these things. I don't always purchase what they hand me, but I do go away thinking about it. In this case, I nearly did.
What intrigued me the most about the piece was the sights. My eyes were going bad when I got into shooting in my 20s. By age 40, I was putting scopes on everything I could. Finally, about my mid-50s, my eyes started going back the other way. The Chemo jumbled up my prescription terribly, but my eyes are settling out, and the bottom line is that I can see irons again.
The other thing that intrigued me was the hammer. I've always had a thing for the hammer that Browning put on his 1897 shotgun. I've always loved that thing. It was the first exposed hammer firearm I owned. Pulling back the hammer is positively sensual. The 1892 comes about as close to this as I've found in a rifle. I briefly thought of what it would take to get it home, and then passed. At 65, I know impulse buying at the LGS is a perilous and slippery slope.
I decided to go home and do some serious reading. That culminated in the phone call this past afternoon to the LGS. Dave, the guy who picked up, knew it was me. I might be paranoid, but I feel like he was expecting my call.
I've got unfinished business with 44 Mag. The Ruger Model 44 that died was not a good platform for cast bullets. At very least, I can shoot this a bit, and come to grips with my daftness, and put this up on the rack. It's stainless, so it can go decades without serious upkeep. At very worst, it can stand there for the rest of my life reminding me of my close relationship to temptation.
