Jammed magazine follower - Rossi 92

[@thewheels]

Rifle:Rossi 92

Can't get the mag follower to budge on a Rossi 92. I removed the mag tube spring and spring retainer cap on the tube to be sure there's no pressure on the follower.
It's stuck at the end of the magazine tube - right where it would sit if the gun was empty. I can open the action and I see it's yellow, plastic, ugly little face staring out at me from under the barrel.
I stuck a large screwdriver in the action and tapped on the face of the follower and that merely poked a little hole in its face.

I'm thinking about making the hole a little larger and forcing some twine through it and all the way down the tube so I can grab it and then tie a washer to the other end to see if I can pull the plastic follower out from the other end with a good yank on the twine.
Other than that, I'm not sure what to try.
I have seen the stainless steel followers for these and intend on purchasing one as soon as I get this plastic garbage out.
I'm not sending it back to Rossi, Braztech, Taurus or whatever the name they're using this week for this issue.
Some reading indicated that certain cleaning or lubing products can make these plastic followers swell and become brittle.
The odd thing is, I had just run 10 rounds through it and was able to load it, fire it, cycle it and eject all empties without issue.
As soon as it was empty, I went to load it again and the rounds would not pass through the loading gate which is how I discovered that the follower was stuck tight.
If anybody has any other ideas, throw them out there.
I'm really disgusted at this point. This gun is almost 3 years old and has 100 rounds through it at most and it gets cleaned every 8 months or so regardless of use.

 

[kev74]

Take the magazine tube off and poke the follower out with a cleaning rod. I think it unscrews from the receiver after the fore end us taken off.

 

[HEX]

I am familiar with working with the action on that style of rifle but I wasn't familiar with that plastic follower part specifically until looking it up. Strange that the wall to the return spring channel would be so thin that you could poke through it , but I guess that's how it is.

I would definitely NOT make the hole any larger because you'd be damaging the structural integrity in such a way that pulling it from that hole (as you mention) could very easily wind up just breaking out the remaining plastic and leaving you with just a ring stuck in there with a fully broken out center. That would be a lot worse.

If you need to push it out from inside the action, you want something that's a close to the full diameter of the follower as possible because the force is then going against the thing's walls and not just that center disc wall of apparently very thin plastic. I'm not certain on the R92, without looking at it up close, if taking off the mag tube is easier or harder than dissembling the action. Taking the action out would certainly give you more clearance to tap in a very short dowel (almost the full diameter of the follower) to push it out (that's how I'd try it) , but you might be able to get that done just through the open action without taking apart anything.

 

[HEX]

I had a hard time finding videos showing the mag tube removal , but this is close.
Not the greatest videos, and sort of badly titled considering that they don't actually show the removal of the tube , but they show enough. It looks like the tube isn't even screwed in and it (probably) just comes off along with the wood.

Looks pretty simple. Perhaps much less hassle than trying to knock it through either by way of the action or having to take apart the action.

 

[thegatman]

Me thinks when you cleaned it the solvent distorted the plastic follower. Happened to me with a Gold Hunter. replace with metal.

 

[@thewheels]

I noticed those videos a while back that Hex posted and forgot they were out there.
Hopefully I get time to remove the mag tube this weekend. I'd rather not take the action down to fix this.

 

[Trauma47645]

Sell it to me for $200 and move on

 

[@thewheels]

Sell it to me for $200 and move on

Ha! Not mine to sell. I'm just the guy that gets to fix it, clean it and every once in a great while shoot it.

 

[dsdmmat]

Rossi's work real well if you don't use them.

Seriously though I would replace the follower with an aftermarket .metal one.

 

[@thewheels]

UPDATE:

Ordered the stainless steel follower from Steve's Gunz and ended up removing the magazine tube to get the jammed plastic follower out. It wasn't coming out easily any other way.
After dropping the new follower in the tube and putting it all back together I had a chance to feed and shoot it.
For testing, I opened a box of reman 38 special ammo from Freedom Munitions. I got about 2 or 3 rounds into the magazine and then I was unable to get anymore through the loading gate. After taking it all apart and removing the rounds from the magazine I put it back together and dumped a little lube down the tube thinking that may be the problem.
I start loading the rounds again and basically the same thing happens - maybe 3 or 4 rounds can be loaded this time before I get hung up again. No matter what I try I can't feed another round through the loading gate.
The other weird thing is that the rounds that are in the tube won't feed back into the action to get loaded into the chamber.
After 5 or 6 more attempts to load it and removing the tube and forearm and putting it back together, a dim lightbulb flickered in my brain.
Following my hunch I narrowed the issue down to a single round that was causing the feed issues. With the gun apart I found that one specific round wouldn't fit. I kept grabbing the same few rounds in my attempts to load it. The case rim was the issue. With the gun apart I found that it would hang up in the receiver to tube transition. The bullet and most of the case were in the magazine tube but the rim wouldn't pass that spot. I have yet to put my calipers on it to measure it but all other cartridges from the box fit, fed and fired without issue.
I have never had an issue with any ammo from Freedom Munitions but I may end up selling the reman I bought from them for this gun. In a wheel gun I can't see a rim diameter issue causing problems.

 

[togmaster]

Sounds like your magazine tube may be distorted too. Did you load the "bad" round in the same order every time?

 

[@thewheels]

Sounds like your magazine tube may be distorted too. Did you load the "bad" round in the same order every time?

I thought that it may have been distorted as well but the follower will slide up and and down the tube without hanging up anywhere.That was the 1st thing I thought when the issue started.
I kept trying to load the same 4 rounds and essentially it ended up being the 2nd, 3rd or 4th every time I tried.

 

[Mk44]

I would try a couple of different brands of ammo. Could be the ammo.

 

[@thewheels]

I would try a couple of different brands of ammo. Could be the ammo.

Remington 125 grain 357 mag JSP fed/fired perfectly and I only had to change my POA a little lower to smack the gong.