Cheap Guns – Short Overview of the Rossi Gallery Gun

I think I have found the poster child for “cheap gun.”
Fleet Farm has the Rossi Gallery pump 22LR on clearance for $210. I have a large gross of dirty 22LR plinking ammo and thought, “I could use a beater that can handle this stuff,” and I picked one up. With temps at 80 degrees or higher the past few days, my 4+ feet of snow is gone and I dragged out a table and gun rest to see how awful it shoots.

It’s clunky. The action isn’t even close to smooth, but it feeds. The grip and trigger relationship is terrible and causes me to rest my finger high on the trigger, which is already stiffer than an Axis. It looks cheap. It feels cheap. But it doesn’t shoot cheap. It dialed a perfect bullseye in 6 shots using Remington Golden Bullet 36gr. The next 9 rounds were spent making the spinner target dance like Cliff Claven on a shock collar!

I loaded 15 rounds of the Maxx Tech ammo (dirty junk). 2 dud rounds in the mix. Could hardly see a dent in them. Tried them in another rifle… hardly a dent. Must be thick casings! The rest continued to hit where I aimed, to the tune of nailing 1/16″ lettering and expanding 60% of the previous shots when aiming at the same spot.

I don’t like hi-vis sights because the front sight covers too much of the spot I want to hit, so I adapted to more of a shotgun-styled aim and I couldn’t believe how I was smoking shot after shot! I did miss a 1/4″ target 2x shooting prone, but in the gun rest, it never missed! The barrel got warm, but I didn’t get any errant shots. 28 rounds is all I fired today but all in all, I’m very impressed with its accuracy! There is little else to like about this firearm, so my summary is going to be a simple one: If you’re in the market for a cheap, beater firearm that can shoot, this is a very good option. Boat gun, ATV rider, pickup gun rack or behind the seat JIC ya see a squirrel or rabbit, or whatever. Provided you protect the sights, not much else matters with this gun. It will shoot, so if you can overcome the terrible craftsmanship and dismal ergonomics, there’s a shot at being happy with it.

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I used to work at a major big box sporting goods retailer that currently has the rossi Gallery on sale for 210$ and when they first came in I thought they were really cool, until I actually looked closely and cycled them a couple times. Cool idea, poorly executed

Update:

I’ve placed around 450 rounds down her now and the cheap ammo is still a bigger issue than the gun itself. The casings must have a variance in thickness because I discovered that some were getting stuck in the tubular magazine. I cleared it and put some higher quality ammo in her and none of it got stuck inside the plunger. I threw some Rem dry lube down the plunger and it has helped reduce hang ups.

The accuracy has not changed one bit. Its primary use has been shooting damaged/hanging limbs from trees, knocking them to the ground before they can fall on me or the neighbor’s kids/dogs and such. I suffered a lot of damage from a spring storm. It was actually fun whittling the branch down to a single hanger and seeing how often the very next shot dropped the branch to the ground.

It does feel like the gun is breaking in a little bit, or I’m just acclimating to it more. It just feels like the action is freeing up a little, sights are staying where they belong, and the accuracy is still awesome.