Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
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Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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Seeing as we're talking Ross rifles, and the thread's about WW2 pics, here's both in one:
Home guard Englishmen, I assume?
Home guard Englishmen, I assume?
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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- Darkest Edmonton
That's quite the piece of kit. bud. Thanks very much for that. Just how much heavier is the barrel than standard issue?
Seeing as we're talking Ross rifles, and the thread's about WW2 pics, here's both in one:
Home guard Englishmen, I assume?
I wonder if those Rosses they were issuing to the UK Home Guard in WW2 had had the chambers reamed out to use British-issue ammo? If not, those lucky Home Guards would have really needed that bayonet drill...
After the Canadians on the Somme in early 1916 found their Ross rifles jammed after 3 or 4 rapid shots, investigation determined that the rifles worked perfectly with Canadian-made ammunition. However, British tolerances allowed for a bit more leeway in the acceptable case diameter on their issue ammo - and the SMLE unlike the Ross was made with a chamber sized to take that into account. After the Ross-armed Canadian troops overseas started being resupplied from British ammo dumps, the slightly thicker British cases began jamming in their rifle chambers after a few shots had heated everything up.
The problem was easily fixed by reaming the Ross chambers out an extra thousandth of an inch or so in diameter to match the specs of the British SMLE chambers. However, by the time the Ross factory started doing this, its rifle had acquired such a bad reputation with the troops for getting soldiers killed by jamming that the Canadian government decided the easiest way to handle the morale problem was simply to withdraw the Ross from service and replace it with SMLEs from British stocks (for everyone except the snipers).
Because of that decision, I know the Canadian government never bothered to retro-fit all of the Rosses in its own arsenals. All the Mark IIIs that were converted to 'Parks and Rec' Rosses and used by game wardens or later sold to the public were fixed.
However, I have personally fired a couple of full mil Rosses that had clearly never received the 'fix'. When I tested them at the range, using SAAMI-spec commercial/military .303, I was only able to fire maybe 3 shots in a row. With each shot, the bolt would become harder and harder to work, until on the final shot, the rifle would jam closed immovably on the last fired case. I would then have to wait 5 or 10 minutes for the rifle to cool down enough for the brass to contract to the point I could extract it again. Not a big deal on a range in Western Canada in peacetime, but I now fully understand why the troops in the trenches hated and distrusted the Ross so much. (The solution in the trenches when facing an oncoming enemy advance was to stand the rifle upright and stomp down on the bolt handle until either the cartridge case extracted and a new round could be chambered or something broke and left the soldier with a handy club.)
I notice the bayonets in the photograph are sharpened and re-shaped to acute points. That was done just before the Rosses went overseas to the Western Front; the bayonets on the rifles left in stores back in Canada remained unsharpened with rounded points. I believe the rifles in Canada were the first ones to be sent back to the factory to have the chambers corrected, but the Ross was killed as a service rifle before the re-fit had been completed throughout. In particular, the Rosses already overseas with the troops in France were simply exchanged for SMLEs from England. IIRC that's how those Rosses wound up in the UK for issue to the WW2 Home Guard in the first place: nobody ever bothered to have them shipped back to Canada.
Which rather causes me to wonder if they ever had their chambers reamed out to the looser specs?
If not, then in retrospect, it may be just as well that the British were so short of ammunition after Dunkirk that live-fire training in the Home Guard was restricted to one or two shots per man, if that. If those Home Guard soldiers had ever had the opportunity to try a round of rapid-fire practice with their nice minty Ross rifles, they might have been extremely unhappy...
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Barrel on the Aussie HB rifles was to the same spec as the barrels on the old Long rifles. In other words, same outside diameter as the barrel on a Number 4.
At least, that went for the single rifle I was able to inspect closely. they really are not all that thick on the ground in this country.
As to the Ross, my views are well known (TOO well-known, some would say!).
The problem was not really British-standard ammunition, but rather British NON-standard ammunition which would not make it into the chamber of an SMLE. People have forgotten that the British increased Chamber diameter of the SMLE (very quietly) about the same time as the Ross was being (very loudly) cursed in public. There was a LOT of politics involved in the whole sad affair.
The men I knew who used the Ross in the Gas Attack at St. Julien fired literally hundreds of rounds that day..... with no trouble. I do not know what ammunition 8th Batt was using.
Captain George Dibblee DCM (5th Batt CMR) told me that the Ross was "unpopular, due to its length and weight; you couldn't get into a dugout with your rifle slung". He attested also that 5 CMR had NO problems with the Ross Rifle and attributed this to their standard of maintenance.
I have used a Ross Rifle Mark III myself in a timed, high-speed match with 40 reactive targets on rolling ground, distances unmarked, ranges from 80 yards to 590. Two Rosses cleared the range in 8 minutes 30 seconds, beating out a pair of MINIMIS. Not bad for old junkers! One was my HMS Canada rifle, the other a Bubba Special with a full-length barrel. We used 78 rounds total.
At least, that went for the single rifle I was able to inspect closely. they really are not all that thick on the ground in this country.
As to the Ross, my views are well known (TOO well-known, some would say!).
The problem was not really British-standard ammunition, but rather British NON-standard ammunition which would not make it into the chamber of an SMLE. People have forgotten that the British increased Chamber diameter of the SMLE (very quietly) about the same time as the Ross was being (very loudly) cursed in public. There was a LOT of politics involved in the whole sad affair.
The men I knew who used the Ross in the Gas Attack at St. Julien fired literally hundreds of rounds that day..... with no trouble. I do not know what ammunition 8th Batt was using.
Captain George Dibblee DCM (5th Batt CMR) told me that the Ross was "unpopular, due to its length and weight; you couldn't get into a dugout with your rifle slung". He attested also that 5 CMR had NO problems with the Ross Rifle and attributed this to their standard of maintenance.
I have used a Ross Rifle Mark III myself in a timed, high-speed match with 40 reactive targets on rolling ground, distances unmarked, ranges from 80 yards to 590. Two Rosses cleared the range in 8 minutes 30 seconds, beating out a pair of MINIMIS. Not bad for old junkers! One was my HMS Canada rifle, the other a Bubba Special with a full-length barrel. We used 78 rounds total.
My father was issued a Ross when he joined the Army in 1940 and thought very highly of it on the range. I did quite a bit of shooting with a MkIII Ross and reached the same conclusion. United Cigar Stores used to sell hunting knives which were cut down from Ross bayos. Interestingly, the Ross bayo was thought to be an ideal fleshing tool by hide hunters/trappers-ex quality steel, rigid and just the right length for use on a fleshing board.
In 1939, Canada held more Ross rifles than Lee Enfields in stores. They were used for training throughout the War.
The bad 1915 ammunition was from a single contractor, whose ammunition unfortunately was what was issued at a critical time. It was problematic in Ross and Lee Enfield rifles.
McBride reported that Cdn machinegunners would pass every round through the T-slot on the face of their Brownings' breech blocks before loading the checked cartridges into belts.
The bad 1915 ammunition was from a single contractor, whose ammunition unfortunately was what was issued at a critical time. It was problematic in Ross and Lee Enfield rifles.
McBride reported that Cdn machinegunners would pass every round through the T-slot on the face of their Brownings' breech blocks before loading the checked cartridges into belts.
The great Ross debate. I have a very nice 1910 sporter. I love shooting it but,,, I would never have taken it to war if I had the choice. All you have to do is look at the bolt head with it's fine tolerances to see that a bit of grit will jam it. That's no knock on the rifle but just it's application.
One of the reasons that the Lee Enfield is my favorite battle rifle is that the rear locking lugs are well exposed and easy to clean as opposed to the Mauser style or Ross where the bolt head locks into the rear of the chamber.
Just my opinion.
One of the reasons that the Lee Enfield is my favorite battle rifle is that the rear locking lugs are well exposed and easy to clean as opposed to the Mauser style or Ross where the bolt head locks into the rear of the chamber.
Just my opinion.
And like I said earlier, I've personally experienced a "jamming" Ross on the range. Spotlessly clean rifle, SAAMI-spec modern commercial-grade ammo that worked perfectly in every other .303 rifle I ever fired it in. Ross would jam as soon as it was fired enough to heat up the rifle.
So with all due respect, I personally do NOT believe that the problem was solely "non-spec' or "bad" British ammo. That undoubtedly exacerbated the situation, but the problem was definitely more than that - or it wouldn't have been felt necessary to retro-ream every chamber of every Ross in the system.
I think part of the problem was that the Ross was never ever a fully developed battle rifle. It was adopted at an early stage in its development and issued to the Militia. And it developed a sterling reputation as a superbly accurate service 'target' rifle - everything built to match-grade specs (including the barrelling and the chambers) and performed superlatively with match-grade Canadian ammo. Didn't do so well when it got into dirty service conditions using non-match-grade war-service ammo.
But if you look at the history of the Ross, one of the things that really stands out is that Sir Charles Ross never ever stopped tinkering with it. That's the reason there are an endless number of marks and variations - and trouble sometimes telling them apart. The Mark II and Mark III, for example, are for all intents and purposes entirely different actions.
The other thing, of course, is that the Ross rifle, in all its variations, was essentially built to the same size specs as the British Long Lee Enfield - hence the complaints about its size and weight.
Originally, the British followed the age-old pattern of issuing full-length Long Lee Enfields to infantry and very short Lee Carbines to cavalry. One of the major improvements that came out of their experience in the Boer War was the decision to equip everyone with an intermediate-sized rifle, the Short Magazine Lee Enfield. The Americans followed the same pattern soon after with their Springfield, and the Germans eventually did the same with the Mauser Kar98k. The Ross rifle was never developed in a 'short rifle' pattern. And that, by itself, might have been enough to make the troops want to dump it for the SMLE.
The Ross bayonet was absolutely superb however. Reportedly, when used as a bayonet, it was somewhat wobbly on the rifle. On the other hand, as both a fighting knife and all-round utility knife, it was so much better than the SMLE's Pattern 1907 bayonet (and just about every other bayonet issued to anybody until the 1990s or thereabouts) in both quality of design and materials that it wasn't funny. I think a lot of them went "missing" when the troops exchanged the Rosses for SMLEs.
A Chieftain and a Panther?
Hey guys, so I was fortunate enough to make it to Bowington
I will post some pictures daily.
Here is the first couple:
Enjoy
A King Tiger and Challenger MBT
Great pictures
infideleggwelder
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Dab still isn`t all that good, but then there is the turkish offering of Effes. usually free, usually get you in a lot of trouble. i think it may have been fortified, and might be the worst tasting beer in the world.
we used to drink it by the case
- Location
- Beaverlodge, Alberta
Ross did design an improved MkIII with a 26" barrel and an enlarged bolt stop that stopped the deformation of the rear left locking lug which had caused much of the problem. There were many issues with the Ross that were entirely political. Yes mass producing prototypes with insufficient field tests was way out of line. All the publicity of them being jam-o-matics was simply an easy way out. Ross offered to build P-14s until they got his MkIII dialed in but was turned down. Also they tried putting a band aid on the problem of the deforming rear lug by heat treating them in the field. Remember the early serialed Springfields? Think that method of heat treating was crude, you should see what they did to Ross bolts. Ross also dropped the ball by not having a way to check supplied steel's carbon content which further complicated the heat treating issue.
Col. Sam Houghes after all his years in service to the Ross as its biggest supporter rejected any notion of a shortened version with 26" barrel for infantry use. When it became obvious that this was the fix for one of its bigger downfalls he turned his back on Ross and the rest is history. Sir Charles was really caught between a rock and a hard place from the start. He wanted to make money obviously but perhaps should not have allowed his rifles pressed into service by an idiot government before they were ready. His trouble was a morality issue more than an effective design issue. The cryers took every bug and ran with it.
Would I want to be issued a Ross MkIII going into battle in WWI over a SMLE? Hell no. I wouldn't want a trials version of the Long Lee either, which in a sense is exactly what the Ross MkIII was when it was forced into action, well ahead of its due time and with a classic Canadian level of political meddling that could ruin the best technological advance in short order. When it comes down to it, the blame should be on the Canadian and British governments and not the rifle.
