Sunday new-gun day

[u/prosper_0]

Took my new Morisson 12" 357 levergun to the range today, very satisfied with this oddball Turk. 12" barrel, 38/357 top-ejecting levergun. It's kinda sorta like a 94 Winchester, but with a somewhat shorter stroke and a beefed up action. Mine surprised me with a checkered stock (none of the pictures online have checkering), which I'm very pleased with. The fit and finish is very good - I have yet to spot any flaws or loose parts, or metal shavings anywhere. Its not blued, sadly, but matte parkerized. Though the finish is very durable, and hasnt scuffed or dinged yet. The action is a bit stiff - you have to cycle it 'with purpose,' but it's already breaking in very well after a few hundred cycles.

I mounted an inexpensive 1.5-6x32 Vortex IR scout scope on it. The blued rings I'd bought were about 1mm too low, so I mounted it in some stainless rings I had on hand. I had to remove the factory rear open sight to clear the scope bell. I like the scope OK, but it doesn't hold a candle to a Burris scout scope. Still, I'm satisfied with the optic at about the $350 price point, I guess. At low power with the reticle lit, it feels a lot like using a red dot. I don't like open sights, and the integrated rail was a major selling point for me.

At the range, I fired a hundred or so mixed 38spl and 357 rounds. It fed everything well, with one or two misfeeds on one of my 38spl loads - mostly due to being a bit too timid on the lever. A more assertive operation fed with no failures. There were no FTFs or other operational issues. I didn't test for accuracy (yet) but had no problems consistently drilling the 6" gong at 100 yards. The gun points and aims very well, and is really easy to use standing or from the bench. The balance and swing is just about perfect. The top eject does have an unfortunate way of throwing brass right back at you, but thats true of any top eject lever gun. I didn't chrony anything, but it threw all loads tested at a fairly close POI, from really light 38spl with 124gr over 3.5gr of Clays, to stouter +p loads with 125 and 158gr bullets, and full house 158gr 357 loads over 16.5gr of h110. The short barrel did mean that all shots were relatively loud, and the 357's especially made for a big blast and an impressive fireball. The delay between the shot and the impact with light 38spl loads was fun. Seemed like a real long wait for the 'ting!' whereas the fireball loads felt almost instant in comparison.

I see a fresh batch of Morissons has arrived, in fun new calibers. Wonder if the 44 version is gonna be available in 12"... I'd DEFINITELY buy another of these guns.

[u/HappyCan7250]

How do you like it? I had one but it had issues with blowing primers out. It only liked running a couple brands or ammo, the rest would blow holes through the primer or crater badly. It also had some issues with shells occasionally binding up in the mag tube. Whether good or bad, the end of the mag tube is left open too, partially, allowing in dirt, but thankfully allowing you to easily get stuck shells out by compressing the spring with something from the top. I bought one super early, sometime around may or so of last year, near when they first showed up here.

It was actually surprisingly quite accurate. It's more accurate than the R95 in 357 I have now, somehow. The Turks honestly make some good barrels, one of my most accurate rifles is Turkish made (Stevens 334).

It was a pretty fun little gun. Shot big fireballs out of it with the 12" barrel. Super handy little rifle.

The blown primers though were a pain as I had to stick to about 3 brands of ammo only, with slightly harder primers, but it was a fun range toy. Hand reloads were fine too as long as I stuck to buying the known harder primers.

The checkering must be new, mine didn't have it.

I also must say, the finish and wood on these guns is actually really nice, and SFRC does the warranty for them should you ever need it. I filed a claim but never ended up sending it in just because if I stuck to the 3 brands, the gun ran fine most of the time. 

How does yours feed 38? I only tried running 100gr in mine and it didn't like them, I learned after that a lot of 357 levers won't feed the lighter 38s but the heavier stuff apparently works better.

[u/prosper_0 → u/HappyCan7250]

I like it great. Very happy overall, though my round count is still low. I didnt see any cratering or primer issues with the half dozen loads tested, and hundred or so shots fired. Definitely no ruptures, and I was watching carefully especially with the full on 357 loads. Lightest 38spl was 124gr (i.e. loaded with a 9mm bullet); no issues feeding. I didnt try feeding a wadcutter, but I wouldn't expect THAT to work. One of the two misfeeds observed seemed maybe to do with the feed tube as you describe. I didn't really troubleshoot it, just bumped the butt on the bench and then worked the action till it cleared. It didnt occur again after I started working the action a bit more meaningfully, so I assumed it was the result of a short stroke.

[u/HappyCan7250 → u/prosper_0]

I found cleaning the mag tube did help, I assume it had some junk in it from manufacturing and or from me taking it out with the open end. They're fun little guns and quite nice looking. 

The blown primers I have seemed to happen with Federal and CCI primarily. I suspect mine had a oversized firing pin hole or slightly too short of a firing pin.

If you keep experiencing those jams from time to time (although they're easy to fix by compressing the spring from the open end of the mag), id recommend cleaning the mag tube out with some spray CLP and then deburring the spring, that seemed to reduce my jams by about 50%.

How was the accuracy with 9mm RN? I've been curious to try this with some handloads but heard mixed things with the 0.002" difference in size

[u/prosper_0 → u/HappyCan7250]

I'll keep that in mind. All my shots were with Federal and Winchester primers.

I wasn't shooting for accuracy, but it was good enough to hit the 6" steel at a hundred yards. I was mostly shooting from standing, so that's about as good as I'd expect to be able to shoot more or less.