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I have a feeling I will get blasted for this. I have been offered a purported winchester factory orginal model 92 in .357. Its not a recent repro. My gut feeling is someone has been bamboozled some where in the past. I ask this here because there is a wealth of knowledge at this sight and I respect most of the judgement calls here.
seasons greetings to all.
John Mc

Bamboozled, yes. Hoodwinked, too. Sam

They were not made in .357. It is a rebarrel or rebore on the gun.

Conversion to 357 required considerably more than reboring(assuming Win. marks-no rebarrel).Bob Snapp did a lot of them, you could check for his mark.
Mike

There is a very informative article on this conversion in one of the very early issues of Rifle Magazine. It is indeed quite a little more work than just a rebore or rebarrel.

Edit: Rifle #31 Jan-Feb 1974 has the article.

I had one in .38 to try for cowboy action, I never could get it to work. My local gunsmith wasted a lot of time trying also.
CHAZ

These were fine little guns in the 3 original chamberings. Why anyone would want to convert one to 357 is beyond me.
Personally I believe do so ruined any collector value it would have had.
Jim

25-20 32-20 38-40 44-40 original caliber.

Check out this short article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Model_1892

They claim original calibers were .32-20, .38-40, .44-40, .25-20, .218 Bee. I am not a Winchester collector....

It also states the factory would custom chamber a gun. The 357 mag was introduced in 1934, about 11 years before the 92 was phased out. So it is possible. If it is a 100% factory, then it is a rare bird. You need to get the serial number, then contact the Cody Firearms Museum.

Pete

They were originally chambered in 3 calibers 32-20, 38-40, and 44-40 The 25-20 chambering was added later.
A FEW, very late examples were chambered in 218 Bee.
Jim

Thank You gentlemen for the input. As it turned out the gun was bought by a friend at a big name gun store, for big money. Cody has not been helpful yet. The bottom line the gun is going back unless the store can come up with provenience (provenance)
take your pick.
Thanks again for your help final details will follow at a later date.
John Mc

I sure hate long distance evaluations without holding the object in my hands and eyeballing it.

Chaz,
If it didn't work with 38Spec. I would suspect the OAL was a little short. You might try seating the bullet "out" a little.
Mike

Mike, I believe "local gunsmith" is what is known as a clue.

According to Paul Marquart, who wrote the Rifle article, it is the lack of cartridge taper that causes the problems with feeding. His solution was to modify the feed ramps so the rear of the cartridge can move up higher so it is lined up to go straight into the chamber.