Well a friend of mine just bought a Rossi Puma in .357, and the damn carrier didn't even work. I was thinking it was from dirt until we soaked it in Tri-Flow and it still didn't do anything. So I completely stripped down pretty much the whole assembly except for 3 parts, the lever, the bolt and the carrier. I went ahead and polished/tuned the rest of the parts while it's disassembled.
Is anyone familiar as to how to remove the carrier? Should I remove the lever and the bolt before attempting this? I was getting ready to do that but the lever/bolt pin isn't exactly lining up with the hole, but I'm sure I can figure out a way to make it work.
As a side note, I was amazed at how rough this rifle was on the insides, but than again that's what a $400 rifle is worth I guess?! It took a little bit but I got it smoothed out to all I could have.

I owned one for less than 24 hours. About 6 years ago, I was looking for a lever rifle in 454 Casull. At that time, Rossi had just come out with that chambering in the Puma.

Got the rifle home. The barrel interior was rough. Cleaning did not help. No finish work there.

The action was rough as well. It did not appear that any finish process was followed. And it jammed.

The final straw was when the stain on the stock and foreend was coming off on my hands. My dealer took it back.

Had I kept it, the rifle would have required some quality time with a gunsmith. The finish required was more than honing down a few rough spots.

I thought my experience was unusual - just one bad rifle that somehow got past their quality control. I guess I am not alone.

I have a Rossi 92 in 357 Mag and love it. It's an older blued gun, but it shoots good and I haven't had any problems with it.
A friend of mine bought a new Puma 44mag stainless gun. The action was abit stiff at first, but it is smoothing up the more he shoots it. He hasn't had any problems with his in the past 2 years.

about 20 years ago, I had a Marlin 1894 in 44 mag. It was very accurate(1 1/4 - 1 1/2" for 3 shots at 100 yards with 225gn cast SWC), but it jammed all the time. I had to take it apart several times in the mountains. I wasn't as good at fixing guns then and sold it.

So I guess you can get good and bad no matter where you look.

As a side note. Anybody know what the max cartridge length is for the Puma in 480 or 454?

I also have a Rossi 92 in caliber .44-40 WCF, which I like very much, and had no problems with it todate. I bought the rifle back in 1983.

There was an article on the Rossi M92 in 45 colt that White Labs did some pressure testing on. If I remember right, they pushed the pressures over 50-60k and could not find anything wrong with the gun afterwards. They did a very detailed inspection of all the parts torn down before and after.

I'm thinking that I may have to get one in 480, but would like to rechamber to 475 if it will fit. Anybody know the max length that will feed?

Thanks for the replies! Well I got it apart and did a whole day's worth of honing and polishing. Now it's slick as anything, but there's still one problem, the carrier still doesn't want to work! It lifts maybe halfway, than stops against the left action bar, with the little hook on the end. I'm not too familiar with these, I grew up working on everything but lever actions. I'm almost considering either putting a relief cut in the left side of the carrier or just making some custom parts myself for it.
I've heard these things are tough as anything, and I've personally considered buying one myself. But after this little adventure in reworking, I'm pretty much put off of this rifle. The barrel actually looked really decent, it was just the action and the wood, while not wonderful, was still alright.

I picked one up in a 454 16 inch barrel after reading all this I am wondering what I have in store for myself.