Forget Miroku's '92

Chiappa, Marlin, Mossberg and non-Rossi Manufactured Pumas plus anything else with a leveraction.
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Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Reese-Mo »

Well, I hate to say it, but forget Miroku's '92. It will never be as slick and smooth as a Chiappa, Cimarron (Chiappa), Taylors (Chiappa), or Rossi. Not for someone who has little or no access for a way to fabricate parts.

That rebounding hammer, while doable, workable (even of dubious need), puts a real wall of resistance in the lever's stroke. Its like backing out of your driveway and having a nasty speed bump after you've gotten 1/4 the way out.

I've read all over the 'net, and people say "just cut off the rebound leg of the hammer strut". Don't do it, it won't work, and here's why. The strut needs to rest on the hammer either on its "forward" or "rebound" leg. When the hammer moves forward, the "rebound" leg, which is below the hammer axis, begins to re-tension the mainspring by moving the strut rearward again. Its like a handoff from forward to rebound legs. Well... Miroku in its infinite wisdom has made that strut "just long enough" so that at the neutral position (where the forward and rebound struts "equal out" and both rest on the hammer), there is one a few scant millimeters of "extra length" poking out the piece that captures the strut. Take off the rebound leg, and the strut falls out of its holder. That wont do. The other reason is, and I have not confirmed this yet (but strongly suspect), is that the two legs on the strut, which straddle the hammer, keep the strut from falling off the hammer, as the two legs keep the strut captive.

I don't doubt all of of the sage advice on the internet. But I also know that one bit of un-vetted advice is often repeated, and repeated, and so forth, until it becomes canon, even though its still not true. On the other hand, I'm sure a certain percentage may be true, so am willing to concede that Miroku may have changed the design to eliminate meddling.

The whole placement of the strut on the hammer is poor too, very close to the axis, which means the tension on the mainspring is fiddly. Fiddly being not only strength, but length of spring to get the hammer to be "just right". Just right, to me, means totally reliable, and decent lock time. I've played a whole lot with my own Miroku '92, using Ruger and Wolff springs (for the Blackhawk/Vaquero) and found one that's sort of ok. You can actually get reliability just fine, due to the massive inertial firing pin, but the lock time goes all to hell.

So there's my little "rant". Miroku makes a nice looking gun. Frankly, the wood was not as well fit as on my new Rossi, but is nice walnut and easily made to fit better. The safety on the tang is no big deal for me, as I can't use tang sights, being long-necked... my nose darn near hits the hammer when its cocked!

The Winchester/Miroku is a great rifle. I like mine. It would be just fine for every "non-competition" use I can imagine. And it feeds everything I stuff into it. But the Rossi is far and away smoother, slicker, and easier to work.
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Re: Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Archer »

My understanding from some of the competitors is the 92 action isn't really competitive even if it is slicked up. The word is the 73 action with a short stroke lever is lots faster. Of course the action is in no way as strong as the 92 action but for the cowboy action powder puff loads it is more than adequate.

I haven't handled a Miroku 92 in about a decade so I can't say what they might have screwed up. I don't think my 1886 has the rebounding hammer but is the half cock setup. I've never been much of a fan of the rebounding design. I doubt Miroku is making any changes on their own. I suspect any modifications to the weapons are done at the behest of Herstal/FN/Winchester. FN really isn't very interested in the consumer market. They have a tendency to focus on government contracts and the Winchester/Browning collector market is an acceptable low volume sideline.
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Re: Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Reese-Mo »

True that the '73 is the speed king, but lots of folks use Rossi guns in matches.

The Miroku has a really deep, sharp, "hold open" notch in the bolt too, that the hammer rides in to keep the lever open. Its just a hard to manipulate gun, although its ejector spring is perfect.... go figure.

My 94's were all New Haven guns, worked well. Two without any safety, one with no safety but rebounding hammer which I thought was a bit odd. My current 92.... I've got a buddy who does knife making on the side, and I'm gonna see if he'll heat treat a mainspring strut for me. If so, I might just put the longer strut in there, with no rebound added. I've got to look to see how it can be made to stay centered on the back of the hammer.

If Rossi parts were available, I'd just put in a whole lower tang, with trigger and hammer, and replace the "safety" switch with a nice little brass insert on the Miroku. But... they're not, so I have to deal with what I've got.
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Re: Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Archer »

The safety can be 'deleted' or at least locked in the OFF position with a Marbles tang sight as I am sure you are aware. I don't mind the tang safeties much except for the fact they require the special tang sight and don't work once you add one of those sights. I really don't like the push button hammer block safeties on the last run of the U.S. manufactured 94s. I have a .44 Mag 24" Winchester 94 Legacy with one of those cross bolts. I have two 1970-1980 era 94 .30-30s and one of the Angle Eject 94 AEs in .30-30. I don't recall if the AE is a rebounding hammer or not. I don't think the 1970's era guns do.

Even though the Rossi guns were probably reverse engineered from the Winchesters to begin with (or from the El Tiger guns which were total Winchester copies) it isn't a slam dunk that parts will exchange easily. Threads on the Rossi are from what I understand metric on the newer guns and I think when Rossi took over they may have reblueprinted the guns and from what you are showing us maybe they did some tweaks to the CBC guns as the early ones I've seen pictures of did not have the same level of nice symmetry your gun shows on the tops of the bolt locking lugs.
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Re: Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Reese-Mo »

To the best of my knowledge the Miroku parts are metric - but its hard to say what will fit, or not, or what can be made to fit. Back in my day, when I was active with gunsmithing, I built a lot of parts from scratch. Companies like B-Square sell (or used to) taps and dies for all sorts of weird threads found on guns. You could get a 5-46 screw thread, or an 8-42 for that matter. I also had a cohort who could weld like nobody's business. Used to do it all in a vacuum chamber, where he did jet engine parts and such for Sikorsky an Pratt-Whitney. So many times things we thought could never work, did! ;) But, those days are long past. Don't wanna sound too sad about it, but I'm pretty damn old right now, and all of this is just for fun anymore, and downsizing meant no more Bridgeport, or Jet lathe, or surface grinder, or a real shop for that matter!
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Re: Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Archer »

I don't know which standard Miroku is using. I would have expected they might be using English spec since I doubt Browning or Winchester would bother to convert to using metric on an existing and established design although FN MIGHT have decided to go that route. IMO FN has done their share of stupid moves along that line. From what I've heard the Japanese and Miroku have been excellent at reproducing just about anything rather exactly when that's the job description. When they aren't held to that understanding they can produce stuff that simply does not work. Usually that's something more complex than firearms and a case of a translator that is polite rather than accurate. "NO, it will not work." is a precise technical response to a technical question. NO is rude in Japanese conversation so the translation to "It is not the best way" is a polite translation that is not precise nor accurate.

Sometimes it makes sense to use oddball threads or even oddball drive fasteners but quite often the reasons they use an oddball don't really make sense.

Alexander arms for example insisted on using a 9/16" thread for 6.5 Grendel muzzle devices.
It makes sense in a way to use something odd for the 6.5 so that you don't end up putting a 6.5 brake on a 7.62/.308 by mistake but the guys putting out 6.5 Creedmoor and the 6.8 SPC didn't exactly buy into that argument and used the 5/8x24 that was common to the .308 and eventually even Alexander Arms bowed to the pressure and is offering barrels with the 5/8" thread.

Likewise AA chose a 49/64ths for use on the 50 Beowulf. Not common or particularly easy to get. Brownells decided to put out some barrels with a 3/4" thread. That didn't seem to take very well either. So far most of the folks putting out 12.7x42mm clones of the 50 Beowulf seem to be using th 49/64ths thread and there's an active secondary market for muzzle devices since AA is charging at least two or three times reasonable.

I can't count the number of oddball drive features I've seen over the years. Aerospace uses a lot of them. I have several charts of them in my notebooks.
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Re: Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Reese-Mo »

The one I loved to hate was that triple winged security fastener, with the male fastener and female driver. Those drove me NUTZ I say... NUTZ!
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Re: Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Archer »

I have run into those occasionally but the offset cruciform IMO are a stupid design for something you are going to be installing and removing over and over.
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Re: Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Reese-Mo »

Mr. Dremel or Mr. Foredom , cut off wheel.... Instant screwdriver slot.
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Re: Forget Miroku's '92

Post by Archer »

Reese-Mo wrote:Mr. Dremel or Mr. Foredom , cut off wheel.... Instant screwdriver slot.
Not a generally approved procedure when working on airplanes.
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