I'm enjoying shooting a new little Winchester M92 .357 Mag carbine. It loads and shoots jacketed bullets just fine, but what I really bought it for is cast bullet shooting. When I push lead bullet cartridges into the loading gate, most of them hang up on something inside, perhaps the end of the magazine tube, I don't really know what. If I push hard the bullet shaves a bit of lead off the semi-wadcutter bullet shoulder and goes in, but I'd rather have intact bullets and not have a sore thumb. Looking in through the depressed loading gate with a powerful flashlight, I don't see anything obvious for the bullet to hang up on. Have any of you faced this problem, and found a solution?

SWC style bullets were designed for revolvers and can hang up when feeding in tube fed leverguns. The sharp edges of SWC bullets are tough to feed smoothly. Also check OAL of your loaded ammo. The SWC bullets you’re using might be too long. Revolver cylinders can generally accomodate longer bullets. Keith style SWC’s tend to be quite long.

Some folks find that giving the end of the chamber a very light chamfer quite often improves the feeding.

Otherwise just use cast bullets in the RNFP or TC style. These bullet shapes generally feed very smoothly.

Thanks JFE, all good points and I agree with you. I have no problem with this ammunition feeding from magazine to chamber, which is the usual complaint. My rifle feeds smoothly whether I work the lever fast or slow. So that is not an issue. I'm just having trouble loading the magazine without distorting the SWC bullet shoulders or hurting my thumb.
I'm using the SWC Kieth style bullets because I have a couple thousand cheap .38 special cases, and I'm loading them with the only bullet I know that allows loading to approximate proper .357 Mag over all length - the Lyman 358156. If I switched to a different round nose flat point bullet, I would have a problem with over all length since the rifle is not designed for .38 Special ammunition.
Even round nose lead bullets designed for .357 mag cases shave a little bit of lead or hang up while pushing them into the magazine.
Any other ideas?

If you’re confident to strip down the action, I’d take out the loading gate and use needle files and fine emery to smooth the edges of the loading gate and the inside edge of the load port that come into contact with the cartridge during the loading process. Removing any sharp edges should help.

It most likely is just the sharp edge on the top inside of the loading port. If you depress the loading gate, you can use a 1/4" round india stone to smooth the sharp edge from outside the rifle. Of course, you still would have debris/ grit inside the mag tube area to flush out.

I don't know how the new M92's differ from the original design.
But the original design had a little spring-loaded "finger" built into the left-hand feed ramp.

This device allows the rifle (unlike it's predecessor) to handle cartridges that are shorter by only allowing one cartridge to move back onto the feed ramp, catching the one therafter.

I would suggest trying some shorter bullets.

Also, if it is shaving some lead, can't you see where it is shaving that lead?

quote:

I'm using the SWC Kieth style bullets because I have a couple thousand cheap .38 special cases, and I'm loading them with the only bullet I know that allows loading to approximate proper .357 Mag over all length - the Lyman 358156

Sounds to me like you need to stick with 357 cases.

I know we like to be frugal but it might not be worth the hassle.