Ross MKIII chamber picture

[AbitNutz]

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn94/AbitNutz/303_1.jpg (http://s302.photobucket.com/user/AbitNutz/media/303_1.jpg.html)
So I picked up a beutiful Ross MKIII. It looked fantastic for a 100 year old battle rifle. I'm a real fan of the 303 British round so this was a natural buy for me.

After I got the rifle I noticed a the dreaded "E" stamped on the receiver. That stands for "expanded". You see the Ross rifles were chambered too tightly for crappy ammo, so they reamed the chambers oversize to accommodate them. I have heard of them reaming the chambers so oversize that the ammo becomes un-reloadable. The cases are bloated and bellied at the bottom and almost neck-less at the top. Some were rechambered by Ross and others were done where ever...

I hesitantly loaded up a fire forming round of unique and a lead bullet...here's what I found. I do in fact have an expanded chamber but they seem to have done it to my liking. The base did not change or belly more than my custom 303, so they left that really tight. My other 303's are larger. The shoulder area however was reamed. The shoulder of a sized 303 in about .401...the Ross after firing is .411. The body is also blown out and the neck is sharper. Essentially they made a mild improved 303 out of it. Sort of a 303 Gibbs.

These should prove no problem to neck size. If you look close in the picture, you can see that the brass on the right has a straighter taper and a sharper shoulder. Hey, it works for me..

Also, this barrel was military filthy, no pitting or rust just bad filthy. I tried everything to clean it. I almost gave up when a gunsmith buddy of mine gave me a can of Gunslick foaming glop. I had to use it three times, with a wait time of 30 minute after each application but by god it worked! This stuff cleaned where KG-12 did not. KG-12 seems to do great on copper but not on carbon. Gunslick really saved the day.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Interesting......to my eye I see only a slight difference between the two cases. Should be no problem, and very serviceable.

[AbitNutz]

Interesting......to my eye I see only a slight difference between the two cases. Should be no problem, and very serviceable.

It's more obvious when you have them in hand but it is subtle. There are so many stories about the chambers of these beautiful rifles just being hogged out...This was not the case with this one. I have read some where they claim that they almost end up with a straight walled case...

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Then you are indeed fortunate. I have seen very few Ross rifles and actually handled just a couple, and they were of the later version. I wouldn't mind having one, but the opportunity has never presented itself. My impression has always been that, the quirkiness of the reassembly problem aside, they were well made. It's odd that they performed poorly on the Western Front in the mud of France, but at the same time the Austrian M-1895 Steyr-Mannlicher straight pull rifle seemed adequate on the Eastern Front. Anyway, the Ross did have a great reputation for accuracy, as you noted in your other post, and it sounds like you've got a "keeper"!

[AbitNutz]

The bolt design is really unique. It's of an interrupted thread design like a Newton....or should I say a Newton is like a Ross. After I cleaned and lubed it with Frog lube it moves so slickly it's hard to think of it as a WWI trench warfare weapon.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I think the chamber modification was more a matter of trying to make a rifle with minimal primary extraction function in muddy conditions. Much of the Eastern Front was nowhere near as muddy as France and Belgium. The M1895 Mannlicher was an extremely good design, but the organisation of the Austro-Hungarian army was such that if it revealed failings, the chances are that nobody would have noticed. It stood a rather amazing torture test with no lubrication, but its main advantages over the Ross were that it couldn't be wrongly reassembled, and that the bolt stop couldn't damage the lugs.

Nevertheless one of the big surprises about the Ross was that a cheap and easy conversion, at a time when the Lewis cost more than the Vickers HMG, produced the Huot light machine-gun, which was extremely successful in front-line troop trials. I don't think it would have taken a very different war or very different training to make much of the Ross.

[17nut]

This stuff cleaned where KG-12 did not. KG-12 seems to do great on copper but not on carbon. Gunslick really saved the day.

Thats why they invented KG-1

http://kgcoatings.worldsecuresystems.com/products/kg-1-carbon-remover

[AbitNutz]

I bought a book that cost an arm and a leg but immediately gave me answers as to chambers sizes. It seems that rifles marked with a "B" were the original minimum dimension chambers that would only chamber Canadian ammo. Rifles marked with an "E" were the larger dimensions that could use British ammo. It was larger but still cut at the factory when the rifle was made. It was not re-cut. Rifles marked with an "LC" were re-chambered and those are the ones that could have insane dimensions...thank God mine was not one of those.

[EDG]

I think the real problem was a lot of sorry British ammo. The Brits also produced Lee Enfields with huge augured out chambers and we all know that Ross had nothing to do with the chambers in the Lee Enfields. There seems to be many varieties of Lee Enfield oversize chambers and none of them resemble loaded ammo.


I bought a book that cost an arm and a leg but immediately gave me answers as to chambers sizes. It seems that rifles marked with a "B" were the original minimum dimension chambers that would only chamber Canadian ammo. Rifles marked with an "E" were the larger dimensions that could use British ammo. It was larger but still cut at the factory when the rifle was made. It was not re-cut. Rifles marked with an "LC" were re-chambered and those are the ones that could have insane dimensions...thank God mine was not one of those.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Someone, probably not Ross, apparently copied the large chamber designed to make the best job of war in a sorry place. Ammunition picked up on the Western Front seems to have been of quite good quality. I know of a Royal Marines officer who made extremely good groups with the bullets, reloaded in modern cases.