Picked up a Ross!

[Four Fingers of Death]

I stumbled across a Ross today. It has a mint Bbl and all of the metal parts are clear and sharp and the locking lugs are very sharp and clear as well. The charger clip guide is strange it seems to be offset somewhat. I did a search on GPC and can't find any mention of them. Do they have charger clips? This one should go well with lead boolits.
Mick.

[Phil]

Mick, what model is it? The M10 (Mk.III) has an offset charger guide. Never tried but you might see if the Lee Enfield chargers will work.

The Ross is VERY cast friendly, enjoy!

Cheers,

Phil

[PatMarlin]

We need pics Mick! Pics are what we need... :Fire:

[Hip's Ax]

Yes! Pictures please! The mkIII is the Ross on my wish list, thats the one where you can't put the bolt together wrong and have it go through your head.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Get it stuck in your head! I went back to take pics today, but the guy has had staffiung troubles and was swapmed. I'll check in tomorrow if I can. Mick.

I sort of remember seeing a Mk111 on it.

[newfoundlander]

Yes! Pictures please! The mkIII is the Ross on my wish list, thats the one where you can't put the bolt together wrong and have it go through your head.

With all due respect the stories of MkIII bolts lobotomizing(SP?) shooters are greatly exagerated! Canadian, British and American politicians, military contractors as well as the press had their own agendas when it came to dissing the Ross. There were jamming issues with early prodcution MkIIIs due to a design flaw in the boltstop that peened the bolt's locking lugs making extraction difficult. The slipshod tolerances of British wartime ammo was actually the biggest problem for the MkIII. Miscommunication at various levels lead to many mkIII's having their chambers hogged out. After the British shell crisis in the early years of the war nobody in the British military establishment, government or industry wanted to hear or admit there were still problems with domestic production and supply. The belief that all Rosses were inherantly defective also reached the shores of the US. Almost all of the MkII's sold to the NYNG also their chambers enlarged even though there was no reason to do so as they were supplied with Canadian ammo.

As for the notoriously deadly bolt the instances of injury and death were very,very few and almost always involved early MkI and II variants. The "Ross" became infamous after the Price of Wales attended a demonstration on McNab's Island in Halifax Nova Scotia. The bolt of a MkII sheered its lugs killing the Mountie behind the gun. Reassembling an unpinned MkIII bolt incorrectly and putting it back in the receiver is a feat in itself and takes a LOT of mucking about, swearing, brute force and time. For those not familiar with the MkIII there's an easy way to determine if a bolt has been misassembled: Put the bolt in the receiver, close it and pull the trigger. If you're able to open the bolt while the trigger is retracted things are fine. You can also see the bolt head move into battery on the MkIII as the bolt is closed.

Like all guns the MkIII is only as safe as the person behind it and is no more dangerous than any other well made rifle loaded with the proper ammunition fired by a shooter familiar with its operations. The MkIII action is super, super strong and has great gas handling abilities. The Ross MkIII had a lousy track record as a a general issue rifle(ever take an Anschutz free match rifle hunting?) but as a sniper platform it was in a class of its own.

[Sailman]

My father and his brothers served in a Scotchish Regiment out of Toronto in WW I. When they shipped over to France they were equipped with Ross rifles. When they got to France and in the trenches they had problems with the Ross. Dad said that they would wait until early in the morning and go down the line to a British outfit and look for a tommy that was sleeping. They would take his enfield and leave their Ross. Needless to say, this resulted in problems. Finally the British took the Ross rifles and issued Enfields to the Canadians.

If I remember correctly what my father told me, one of the problems with the Ross was that they would have problems with typical military ammo that had dirt etc. on the case. The Ross chambers were to tight and would not accept dirty ammo. Dad said that they sent people down the trenches with hand reamers and were hand reaming the chambers.

In my opinion, the stright pull action was to complicated for dirty trench warfare. I have the same opinion about the Swiss rifle. However, the Ross rifle was a very accurate rifle for target shooting.

I have a Ross rifle. I don't think it is a military rifle, it is to nice to be a military rifle. It looks like a civilian rifle. I have shot the Ross and I have had good results with lead bullets. It has been to many years since I shot the Ross with lead bullets so I can't give you group sizes but I remember I was well pleased with the results with my lead bullets.

Sailman

[Four Fingers of Death]

You can see how they would have had problems, the back of the action is wide open (compared to other rifles) and would fill up with muck. It is like a Swiss watch though, I'm looking forward to using it. No one has mentioned about stripper clips yet, apart from the standard brit/aussie, et, al SMLE/No4 clips. Are these the ones? Seems to be too easy to be true.
Mick.

[Phil]

Yes Mick, the standard SMLE strippers will work. Will write more about my experiences with the Ross tonight. Was going to last night but fell asleep. One of the curses of getting older.

Cheers,

Phil

[Four Fingers of Death]

Yes Mick, the standard SMLE strippers will work. Will write more about my experiences with the Ross tonight. Was going to last night but fell asleep. One of the curses of getting older.

Cheers,

Phil

Like my old mum says, 'old age is not for sissies!' I'm beginning to agree with her.

I will try and get some pics this arvo.

[Larry Gibson]

Here's mine, bore's a little worn but she shoots J bullets like a house a fire. I neck size and with the strong lock up safe loads can be made above those for SMLE's. I push the 150 Hornady SP quite safely at 2950 fps out of the 30" barrel. I really wanted the Lee 312-185 to work in this rifle but they would not feed from the Ross's narrow lipped magazine. However, 314299 shoots very well over 29 gr 4895 and a dacron filler. You can see some one "buckhorned the peep battle sight. For #85 I didn't get hurt too bad.

Larry Gibson

[Phil]

Whew! After reading Newfoundlander's post I had to do some studying. There were about seven recorded instances of MkI and MkII rifle failures. These were due to incorrect bolt assembly/installation mostly. The failures of MkIII rifles were due to, in small part, incorrectly assembled bolts. MOST of the failures (many more than with MkI and MkII rifles) with MkIII rifles were due to incorrectly INSTALLED bolts. In reading about these cases I would say that the fault was about 99% of the time due to operator malfunction in putting the bolt in the rifle incorrectly. BUT, these all could have been prevented in the first case by changes to the bolt during manufacture.

I have had two MkIII (M10) rifles and my shooting buddy has owned one. In all three of these rifles the bolt cannot be inserted into the receiver if the bolt head is incorrectly positioned without concious effort to force the bolt home. Taken all in all, Ross rifle failures are probably fewer than the failures of Winchester M70 rifles or US M1903 rifles.

I'm not sure what Newfoundlander meant by "For those not familiar with the MkIII there's an easy way to determine if a bolt has been misassembled: Put the bolt in the receiver, close it and pull the trigger. If you're able to open the bolt while the trigger is retracted things are fine. You can also see the bolt head move into battery on the MkIII as the bolt is closed." Close the bolt and pull the trigger. Then, while holding the trigger back, try to pull the bolt back. It should not move until the trigger is allowed to go back forward.

The chambers were indeed brutally treated to try to correct a problem with rotten British ammunition. The primary problem with bolts jamming on the Mk.III rifle was with the bolt stop. The original bolt stop contact area was way too small and constant violent operation of the bolt in combat conditions would cause the bolt stop to batter the locking lug that contacted it to deform. This would eventually cause the bolt to stick in the closed position. The later bolt stops were about doubled in contact area which solved that problem. Again, a problem that should have been easily solved long before the war during testing. There was one more problem that would only show up during sustained firing as during extended combat was the extractors on many rifles would hit the face of the barrel where it was clearanced for the extractor. The simple fix for this was to grind a bit off the face of the extractor. The factory fix would have been to machine the extractor cut in the face of the barrel a bit deeper. This from a man with FAR more Ross knowledge than anyone else I know.

I have a Ross M10 (Mk.III) that was liberated from the factory by an employee when it was closed. The rifle had been fired approximately 100 rounds when it came into my possession. I recut the dovetail on a Lyman 17A front sight and installed it on the factory sight base so I can use an aperture insert. Much easier on these poor eyes. Glass bedded and fed the 314299 sized to .312" propelled by 24 grains of IMR4198 or 21 grains of SR4759, the rifle will shoot far better than I can shoot it with iron sights. The barrel on this rifle has never had the chamber modified and is one of the most beautiful chambers I have ever seen on a production rifle.

My shooting buddy purchased his Mk.III from Marstar as I recall. The bore was completely shot, as we were told it would be. I fit a Douglas No.6 contour barrel to the action and chambered it for 30-40 Krag. He glass bedded the whole thing into an old Winchester M52 Marksman stock. With a Unertl Target Scope this rifle has seldom shot a group at 100 yards with cast bullets into an inch. It seems to shoot very consistantly into .5" to .75", with the same loads I use in my 303.

With a decent chamber and decent bore, I have never had, or fired, a Ross that wouldn't give better accuracy than I have gotten from almost any other military rifle. One of these days, if my ship ever comes in, I would like to have a nice M 10 Sporter in 280. But they are getting fewer and farther between, and much dearer in price.

So, friend Mick, just make sure your bolt head is sticking out of the bolt body by about an inch or so before you put the bolt in the rifle and you'll be fine. The Ross is a very slick working action indeed and I have shot mine far more than about any other rifle in the last few years. A true test of how easy a straight pull rifle works is to try it prone. The only straight pull rifle I have seen that will function as easily as the Ross Mk.III is the Swiss K31.

Larry, your rear sight isn't bubba'd. See "The Ross Rifle Story", p.268. It looks just like both of mine. Looks like you have a nice one.

The only thing any more fun than shooting a Ross is talking about them. Mick, keep us posted on how it shoots. And post pics of the beastie. I'll try to take some pix of mine and post them.

Cheers guys,

Phil

[Four Fingers of Death]

I'm not a Ross expert, but the metal work looks as clean as a whistle and the barrel is perfect. The guy who owns the shop told me he worked on it 14years ago when it came into the shop he was working at then. I asked him how he could remember and he said the only good ones that ever came into the country were a batch of 33 Drill Purpose rifles. He said they were a bit pi$$ed when they opened the crate, but they were like new and had a small hole drilled through the chamber only. The Bbls had been pulled, drilled and reassembled (very dangerous business I reckon). They couldn't find any other problems, so they pulled the barrels, the hole was approximately a half inch from the end of the chamber. They trimmed the barrel, recut and rechambered them, reassembled and shortened the woodwork accordingly so the bayonets would fit, gingerly tested one without problems and then performed the work on the rest. He keeps records of all of his work and the guy who sold it to the shop because he was getting too old to shoot was asked where he bought it. He was a gruffy old codger and said 'I bought it off you dill, when you worked in Sydney!' Chris measure the Bbl, checked his records and found it was one of the ones he had performed the kiss of life on. I like to know a rifle's history.

Apparently they worked ok, Chris said when they closed up the old shop, he took 5K of ex mil 303 and fed them all through his before he sold it several years later.

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k228/4fingermick/22538d01.jpg


http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k228/4fingermick/22538d01-2.jpg

This is a bit blurry, but shows you how sharp the edges are on the locking lugs

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k228/4fingermick/22538d01-1.jpg


http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k228/4fingermick/1a80aed2-1.jpg

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k228/4fingermick/1a80aed2.jpg

[Phil]

Hi Mick!

Looks like you have a winner there! Its bound to have a good chamber and throat, and the rifle looks clean as a pin. Can't wait for a range report on it!

Cheers,

Phil

[Four Fingers of Death]

Yeah, strange way of making a DP, maybe the Canuk military smith didn't agree with destroying the rifle and wanted to leave them repairable. Makes no sense otherwise. I'm glad he did it that way though! Mick.

[PatMarlin]

Looks like a beast of a rifle that's for sure.. :drinks:

[Hip's Ax]

Sweet! I have got to find me one of those! Thanks for the pics guys, and as always the interesting discussion. :coffee:

[RGRWJB]

I have 4 of these rifles and I love them all. They are very accurate with the South African .303 ammo.

[robertbank]

Grand Dad tossed his in the mud of France just before Vimy. Claimed you were more likely to get killed by the damm thing then the Hun was. Claimed they jammed lots at the worst possible moment. He spent about four years in the trenches. Died in a Veterans hospital back in 1968 from lung damage caused from the gas. Most fearless man I knew. I figured he had been to hell so he only had heaven left.

Enjoy your Ross.

Take Care

Bob

[wills]

http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl24-e.htm

[Phil]

Hey Wills,

The top rifle in the above link is a M1905, not a M1907. The M1907 was the Scotch Deerstalker, a very nice rifle in its own light. It was essentially a M1905 action modified to use what eventually became a M1910 (Mk.III) bolt.

Cheers,

Phil

[robertbank]

Given that "Scotch" is a liquid of some renown could the gun be a Scot Deerstalker or Scottish Deerstacker.

Take Care

Bob

[Phil]

I shink I will hab to lukk it uppp agin, ew mae be rite. Jusht as sooon as aye fine tuh book agin.

(:>)

Phil