doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Ross rifle range trip today

The major problem with the .303 Ross was the very poor ammunition that the English made. They were chambered for in spec ammo and that was one thing they did not get in WWI. They were also not as able to take the dirt but still it was mostly an ammo problem.
The English chambers in .303 are rather large to take ammo that is out of spec and at least go bang.
Cheers,
Laurie

A great book about the Ross rifle and WWI is "A Rifleman Went to War" by H.W. McBride. Samworth 1935, an outstanding read regardless of the Ross info.

Phil Sharpe, in "The Rifle in America", mentions "Ross rifles and cases of ammunition" being sold by the DCM for "about $5". Sharpe wrote that "the military Ross rifles were perfectly safe, but with their oversize chambers, you could not hit a flock of barns with them". These were apparently used as drill rifles by the US military.

I have been told by Canadian sailors that the Royal Canadian Navy kept their Ross rifles in service for many years, possibly until the .303 cartridge was replaced with the NATO cartridge in the 1960s.

Poor ammunition in WW1 was not limited to English production nor to .303 cartridges. McBride wrote about stealing a case of some "name brand", Winchester or Remington or such, .303 to be sure the ammunition was accurate enough for his intended use. The ammunition made by the large ammunition firms was OK, but the stuff loaded by inexperienced contractors ranged from awful to dangerous. Some of that stuff is still with us. Just last year, while serving as duty rangemaster at our local club, I found a kid who was going to shoot his grandfather's 1903 Springfield with some old ammunition headstamped H-17. That ammunition has been associated with many of the reported Springfield mishaps. I swapped the kid's H-17 stuff for some recent CMP ammunition. Then I destroyed the H-17 stuff, lest someone else try to shoot it.

On the topic of the destinations various Ross rifles saw military service and application, I was just reading today about a colorful character named Morris "Two-Gun" Cohen who in 1911 bought 500 rifles for China. He was London-born and became a Kuomintang general. He reportedly was quite involved in some unstable times during the Sun Yat-sen era. Interestingly, the 500 rifles he bought in 1911 in Winnipeg, Canada were all used and reconditioned. Cohen is reported to have made a second trip to Canada in 1925 to buy more Ross rifles but the outcome of that trip is not documented. Cohen passed away in 1970. I have seen a picture of him seated with Chiang Kai-shek in his later years, so he must have been someone of some ongoing importance and influence.