Rossi 92's very popular here in Australia for shooting pigs mostly. Both blued and stainless. Be wary of the 24" versions with the octagonal barrels. Great shooters, but heavy. Original octagonal barrels had a lot more taper, Rossis seem almost paralell sided
Has their popularity increased since the Port Arthur gun control or have they always been popular?
Always moderately popular. When the US was having its wild west so were we or rather 'wild everywhere', we still had lawless regions into the 1930's. Thousands of 1873 , 1892 etc were imported, some of our prisons used 38-40 as a service calibre. Still a lot of original guns around, always a few 1892's for sale in any gunstore, 1873's are much rarer. The 30-30 is one of the most popular calibres in my state , since I was a kid anyway. What did increase popularity was the cowboy action shooting scene from the 2000's onwards.
